Background From the 1970s, licensing problems had stood in the way of producing film versions of the Conan stories.
Lancer Books, which had acquired the rights in 1966, went into receivership, and legal disputes existed over their disposition of the publishing rights, which ultimately led to them being frozen under injunction.
Edward Summer suggested Conan as a potential project to executive producer
Edward R. Pressman in 1975, and after being shown the comics and Frazetta's artwork, Pressman was convinced. Two years were needed to secure the film rights. The two main parties involved in the lawsuit,
Glenn Lord and de Camp, formed
Conan Properties Incorporated to handle all licensing of Conan-related material, and Pressman was awarded the film rights shortly afterwards. He spent more than US$100,000 in legal fees to help resolve the lawsuit, and the rights cost him another $7,500. The success of
Star Wars in 1977 increased Hollywood's interest in producing films that portray "heroic adventures in supernatural lands of fables". The film industry's attention was drawn to the popularity of Conan among young male Americans, who were buying reprints of the stories with Frank Frazetta's art and
adaptations by Marvel Comics.
Development John Milius first expressed interest in directing a film about Conan in 1978 after completing the filming of
Big Wednesday, according to
Buzz Feitshans, a producer who frequently worked with Milius. Milius had long been an admirer of films like 1958's
The Vikings. He and Feitshans approached Pressman, but differences over several issues stopped discussions from going further.
Oliver Stone joined the Conan project after
Paramount Pictures offered to fund the film's initial $2.5 million budget if a "name screenwriter" was on the team. After securing Stone's services, Pressman approached Frank Frazetta to be a "visual consultant", but they failed to come to terms. The producer then engaged
Ron Cobb, who had just completed a set design job on
Alien (1979). Cobb made a series of paintings and drawings for Pressman before leaving to join Milius on another project. The estimates to realize Stone's finished script ran to $40 million. Pressman, Summer, and Stone could not convince a studio to finance their project. Pressman's production company was in financial difficulties and in order to keep it afloat he borrowed money from the bank. The failure to find a suitable director was also a problem for the project. Stone and
Joe Alves, who was the
second unit director on
Jaws 2, were considered as possible co-directors, but Pressman said it "was a pretty crazy idea and [they] didn't get anywhere with it". Stone also said that he asked
Ridley Scott, who had finished directing
Alien, to take up the task, but was rejected.
Ralph Bakshi was also in talks to direct. Cobb showed Milius his work for
Conan and Stone's script, which according to him, reignited Milius's interest; the director contacted Pressman, and they came to an agreement: Milius would direct the film if he were allowed to modify the script. Milius was known in the film industry for his macho screenplays for
Dirty Harry (1971) and
Magnum Force (1973). He was, however, contracted to direct his next film for
Dino De Laurentiis, an influential producer in the fantasy film industry. Milius raised the idea of taking on
Conan with De Laurentiis, and after a year of negotiations, Pressman and De Laurentiis agreed to co-produce. De Laurentiis took over the financing and production, and Pressman gave up all claims to the film's profits, though he retained approval over changes to the script, cast, and director. Dino De Laurentiis assigned the responsibility for production to his daughter,
Raffaella, and Feitshans. Milius was formally appointed as director in early 1979, and Cobb was named as the production designer. De Laurentiis convinced
Universal Pictures to become the film's distributor for North America. The studio also contributed to the production budget of $17.5 million and prepared $12 million to advertise the film.
Casting While they were working to secure the film rights, Pressman and Summer were also contemplating the lead role. Summer said they considered
Charles Bronson,
Sylvester Stallone and
William Smith—all of whom had played tough figures but, in 1976, the two producers watched a rough cut of the bodybuilding film,
Pumping Iron, and agreed that
Arnold Schwarzenegger was perfect for the role of Conan due to his huge, muscular frame. According to Schwarzenegger, Pressman's "low-key" approach and "great inner strength" convinced him to join the project. Paul Sammon, writer for
Cinefantastique, said that the former champion bodybuilder was practically the "living incarnation of one of Frazetta's paperback illustrations". Schwarzenegger was paid $250,000 and placed on
retainer; the terms of the contract restricted him from starring in other sword-and-sorcery films. Schwarzenegger said
Conan was his biggest opportunity to establish himself in the entertainment industry. Thanks to Pressman's firm belief in him, Schwarzenegger retained the role of Conan even after the project was effectively sold to De Laurentiis. Milius wanted a more athletic look on his lead actor, so Schwarzenegger undertook an 18-month training regimen before shooting began. Besides running and lifting weights, his routines included rope climbing, horseback riding, and swimming. He slimmed down from . Aside from Conan, two other substantial roles were also played by novice actors. Subotai was
Gerry Lopez, a champion surfer, whose only major acting experience was playing himself in Milius's
Big Wednesday. Schwarzenegger stayed at Lopez's home for over a month before the start of filming so they could rehearse their roles and build a rapport.
Sandahl Bergman, a dancer who had had bit parts in several theater productions and films, played Valeria. She was recommended to Milius by
Bob Fosse, who had directed her in
All That Jazz (1979), and was accepted after reading for the part. Milius said the actors were chosen because their appearances and personae fit their roles. He wanted actors who would not have any preconceived notions to project into their roles. Although Milius had reservations when he witnessed the first few takes of the novices at work, he put faith in them improving their skills on the job and altered the script to fit their abilities. Schwarzenegger had studied for weeks in 1980 under
Robert Easton, a voice coach for several Hollywood stars, to improve his speech. His first line in the film was a paraphrasing of
Mongol emperor
Genghis Khan's speech about the good things in life, and the actor delivered it with a heavy Austrian accent; critics later described what they heard as "to crush your enemies—see dem [them] driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of dair vimen [their women]". Subsequently, Schwarzenegger underwent intensive speech training with Milius. Each of his later longer speeches was rehearsed at least 40 times. Lopez's lines were also an issue; although Milius was satisfied with Lopez's work, the surfer's lines were redubbed by the stage actor
Sab Shimono for the final cut. A source close to the production said this was done because Lopez failed to "[maintain] a certain quality to his voice."
Sean Connery and
John Huston were considered for the other roles.
James Earl Jones and
Max von Sydow were, according to Milius, hired with the hope that they would inspire Schwarzenegger, Bergman, and Lopez. Jones was an award-winning veteran of numerous theater and cinema productions. Von Sydow was a Swedish actor of international renown. The role of Thulsa Doom was offered to Jones while he was considering applying for the role of
Grendel in an
upcoming feature based on
John Gardner's
eponymous novel; after learning it was an animation, Jones read
Conans script and accepted the part of Doom. When filming started, Jones was also starring in a
Broadway play—
Athol Fugard's
A Lesson to Aloes. He and the film crew coordinated their schedules to allow him to join the play's remaining performances. Jones took an interest in Schwarzenegger's acting, often giving him pointers on how to deliver his lines. The Japanese-American actor Mako Iwamatsu, known professionally as "
Mako", was brought onto the project by Milius for his experience; he had played roles in many plays and films and had been nominated for an
Academy Award and a
Tony. In
Conan, Mako played the Wizard of the Mounds and voiced the film's opening speech. William Smith, although passed over for the lead role, was hired to play the barbarian's father. Doom's two lieutenants, Thorgrim and Rexor, respectively, were played by
Sven-Ole Thorsen, a Danish bodybuilder and
karate master, and
Ben Davidson, a former American-football player with the
Oakland Raiders.
Cassandra Gava played the witch. Milius hired more than 1,500 extras in Spain. Professional actors from the European film industry were also hired:
Valérie Quennessen was chosen to play Osric's daughter,
Jorge Sanz acted as the nine-year-old version of Conan, and
Nadiuska played his mother.
Script writing The drafting of a story for a
Conan film started in 1976; Summer conceived a script with the help of comic book writer
Roy Thomas, who had been adapting the character's adventures for
Marvel Comics since 1970. Summer and Thomas's tale, in which Conan would be employed by a "dodgy priest to kill an evil wizard", was largely based on Howard's "
Rogues in the House". Their script was abandoned when Oliver Stone joined the project. Stone was, at this time, going through a period of addiction to
cocaine and
depressants. His screenplay was written under the influence of the drugs; the result was what Milius called a "total drug
fever dream", albeit an inspired one. According to Schwarzenegger, Stone completed a draft by early 1978. Taking inspiration from Howard's "
Black Colossus" and "
A Witch Shall be Born", Stone proposed a story, four hours long, in which the hero champions the defense of a princess's kingdom. Instead of taking place in the distant past, Stone's story was set in a post-apocalyptic future where Conan leads an army in a massive battle against a horde of 10,000
mutants. ", as depicted in the film
Kwaidan (1965). When Milius was appointed as director, he took over the task of writing the screenplay. Although listed as a co-writer, Stone said Milius did not incorporate any of his suggestions into the final story. Milius discarded the latter half of Stone's story. He retained several scenes from the first half, such as Conan's crucifixion ordeal, which was taken straight out of "
A Witch Shall be Born", and the climbing of the Tower of Serpents, which was derived from "
The Tower of the Elephant". One of Milius's original changes was to extend Stone's brief exposition of Conan's youth—the raid on the Cimmerian village—into his teens with the barbarian's enslavement at the Wheel of Pain and training as a gladiator. Milius also added ideas gleaned from other films. The Japanese supernatural tale of "
Hoichi the Earless", as portrayed in
Masaki Kobayashi's
Kwaidan (1965), inspired the painting of symbols on Conan's body and the swarm of ghosts during the barbarian's resurrection, and
Akira Kurosawa's
Seven Samurai (1954) influenced Milius's vision of Conan's final battle against Doom's men. Milius also included scenes from post-Howard stories about Conan; the barbarian's discovery of a tomb during his initial wanderings and acquisition of a sword within were based on de Camp and Carter's "
The Thing in the Crypt". According to Derek Elley,
Variety's resident film critic, Milius's script, with its original ideas and references to the pulp stories, was faithful to Howard's ideals of Conan. Milius felt, "all the basic emotions [in the script] are always accessible to audiences. All of the things that Conan does we all feel ourselves. He just acts on them with more intensity than we do. He is a character who relies on the animal. And I always believe that the animal instincts are often the worst part of them. All you do when you evolve is corrupt yourself sooner or later."
Filming Filming started at England's
Shepperton Studios in October 1980, with Schwarzenegger, made up to look like Conan as a king in his old age, reading an excerpt from "The Nemedian Chronicles", which Howard had penned to introduce his Conan stories. This footage was initially intended to be a trailer, but Milius decided to use it as the opening sequence of the film, instead. According to Cobb, Laurentiis and Universal Pictures were concerned about Schwarzenegger's accent, so Milius compromised by moving the sequence to the end. Schwarzenegger trained with voice coach Robert Easton and with Milius in order to eliminate his accent, but their efforts proved to be unsuccessful, so the planned narration which was intended to begin with this scene was not included in the final film. The initial location for
principal photography was former Yugoslavia, but because of concerns over the country's stability after the death of its head of state,
Josip Broz Tito, and the fact that the Yugoslavian film industry proved ill-equipped for large-scale film production, the producers elected to move the project to Spain, which was cheaper and where resources were more easily available. It took several months to relocate; the crew and equipment arrived in September, and filming started on January 7, 1981. The producers allocated $11 million for production in Spain, of which about $3 million were spent on building 49 sets. The construction workforce numbered from 50 to 200; artists from England, Italy, and Spain were also recruited. A large warehouse outside
Madrid served as the production's headquarters, and it also housed most of the interior sets for the Tower of Serpents and Doom's temple; a smaller warehouse was leased for other interior sets. The remaining interiors for the Tower of Serpents were constructed in an abandoned hangar at
Torrejón Air Base. A full-scale, version of the tower was built in the hangar; this model was used to film Conan and his companions' climb up the structure. (
Cuenca, Spain) provided the setting for a supernatural encounter in
Conan. The crew filmed several exterior scenes in the countryside near Madrid; the Cimmerian village was built in a forest near the Valsaín ski resort, south of
Segovia. About one million
pesetas ($12,084) worth of marble shavings were scattered on the ground to simulate snow. The Wheel of Pain scene took place in the
province of Ávila. Conan's encounter with the witch and Subotai was shot among the
Ciudad Encantada rock formations in the
province of Cuenca. Most outdoor scenes were shot in the
province of Almería, which offered a
semiarid climate, diverse terrain (deserts, beaches, mountains), and
Roman and
Moorish structures that could be adapted for many settings. Conan's crucifixion was filmed in March 1981 among the sand dunes on the southeastern coast of Almería. The Tree of Woe was layers of plaster and Styrofoam applied onto a skeleton of wood and steel. It was mounted on a turntable, allowing it to be rotated to ensure the angle of the shadows remained consistent throughout three days of filming. Schwarzenegger sat on a bicycle seat mounted in the tree while fake nails were affixed to his wrists and feet. The scene in which Valeria and Subotai fought off ghosts to save Conan and the final battle with Doom's forces were filmed in the salt marshes of Almerimar. "Stonehenge-like ruins" were erected and sand piled into mounds that reached . The changes to the landscape attracted protests from environmentalists and the producers promised to restore the site after filming was completed. , Spain, provided the locale for an open-air market in the movie. The Temple of Set was built in the mountains, about west of the city of Almería. The structure was long and high. It was the most expensive of the sets, costing $350,000, and built out of various woods, lacquers, and tons of concrete. Its stairway had 120 steps. Milius and his crew also filmed at historical sites and on sets from previous films. Scenes of a bazaar were filmed at the Moorish
Alcazaba of Almería, which was dressed to give it a fictional Hyborian look. Shadizar was realized at a pre-existing film set in the Almerían desert: the fort used for the filming of
El Condor (1970) refurbished as an ancient city. It was expensive to build large sets, and Milius did not want to rely on
optical effects and
matte paintings (painted landscapes). The crew instead adopted
miniature effect techniques (playing on perspective) to achieve the illusion of size and grandeur for several scenes. Scale models of structures were constructed by
Emilio Ruiz and positioned in front of the cameras so that they appeared as full-sized structures on film; using this technique, the Shadizar set was extended to appear more than double its size. Ruiz built eight major miniature models, including a palace and a representation of the entire city of Shadizar that spanned . ''.|alt=Josef Hoffman's stage design for a hall in
Die Walküre involves a tree, at least three times the height of a man. Its very thick roots and branches spread wide across the floor and top, respectively. Cobb's direction for the sets was to "undo history", "to invent [their] own fantasy history", and yet maintain a "realistic, historical look". Eschewing the
Greco-Roman imagery used heavily in the
sword-and-sandal films of the 1960s, he realized a world that was an amalgamation of
Dark Age cultures, such as the
Mongols and the
Vikings. Several scenarios paid homage to Frazetta's paintings of Conan, such as the "half-naked slave girl chained to a pillar, with a snarling leopard at her feet", at the snake cult's orgy. David Huckvale, a lecturer at the
Open University and broadcaster for
BBC Radio, said the designs of the Tree of Woe and the costumes appeared very similar to those used in
Richard Wagner's
Ring of the Nibelung operas at the
Bayreuth Festspielhaus in 1876. Principal photography was completed in the middle of May 1981. The film crews burned down the Cimmerian village and the Temple of Set after completing filming on each set.
Stunts and swords Several action scenes in
Conan were filmed with a "mini
jib" (a remote-controlled electronic camera mounted on a motorized lightweight crane) that
Nick Allder, the special effects supervisor, had devised when he worked on
Dragonslayer (1981). The stunts were co-ordinated by
Terry Leonard, who had worked on many films, including Milius's previous projects and
Steven Spielberg's
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Leonard said that Schwarzenegger, Bergman, and Lopez performed most of their own stunts, including the fights. The three actors were given martial arts training ahead of filming. From August 1980, they were tutored by Kiyoshi Yamazaki, a karate black belt and master swordsman, who drilled them in sword-fighting styles that were meant to make them look proficient in using their weapons. They practiced each move in a fight at least 15 times before filming. Yamazaki advised Leonard on the choreography of the sword fights and had a cameo role as one of Conan's instructors. Tim Huchthausen, the prop maker, worked with swordsmith
Jody Samson to create the sturdy weapons Milius thought necessary. Particular attention was paid to two swords wielded by Conan: his father's sword ("Master's sword") and the blade he finds in a tomb ("Atlantean sword"). Both weapons were realized from Cobb's drawings. Their blades were hand ground from
carbon steel and
heat treated and left unsharpened. The hilts and pommels were sculpted and
cast through the lost-wax process; inscriptions were added to the blades by
electrical discharge machining. Samson and Huchthausen made four Master's and four Atlantean swords, at a cost of $10,000 per weapon. Copies of the Atlantean sword were struck and given to members of the production. Samson and Huchthausen agreed the weapons were heavy and unbalanced, thus unsuitable for actual combat. Lighter versions made of aluminum, fiberglass, and steel were struck in Madrid; these copies were used in the fight scenes. According to Schwarzenegger, the heavy swords were used in close-up shots. The other weapons used in the film were not as elaborate; Valeria's
talwar was ground out from an aluminum sheet. The copious amounts of blood spilled in the fight scenes came from bags of fake blood strapped to the performers' bodies. Animal blood gathered from slaughterhouses was poured onto the floor to simulate puddles of human blood. Most of the times trick swords made from fiberglass were used when the scene called for a killing blow. Designed by Allder, these swords could also retract their blades, and several sprayed blood from their tips. Although the swords were intended to be safer alternatives to metal weapons, they could still be dangerous: in one of the fights, Bergman sparred with an extra who failed to follow the choreography and sliced open her finger. Accidents also happened in stunts that did not involve weapons. A stuntman smashed his face into a camera while riding a horse at full gallop, and Schwarzenegger was attacked by one of the trained dogs. The use of live animals also raised concerns about cruelty; the
American Humane Association placed the film on its "unacceptable list". The transgressions listed by the association included the kicking of a dog, the striking of a camel, and the tripping of horses.
Mechanical effects Carlo De Marchis, the special make-up effects supervisor, and Colin Arthur, former Studio Head of
Madame Tussaud's, were responsible for the human dummies and fake body parts used in the film. The dummies inflated crowd numbers and stood in as dead bodies, while the body parts were used in scenes showing the aftermath of fights and the cult's cannibalistic feast. In Thulsa Doom's beheading scene, Schwarzenegger hacked at a dummy and pulled a concealed chain to detach its head. The decapitation of Conan's mother was more complex: a
Plexiglas shield between Jones and Nadiuska stopped his sword as he swung at her and an artificial head then dropped into the camera's view. A more elaborate head was used for the close-up shots; this prop spurted blood and the movements of its eyes, mouth, and tongue were controlled by cables hidden beneath the snow. Allder created a $20,000 mechanical snake for the fight scene in the Tower of Serpents. The snake's body had a diameter of , and its head was long and wide. Its skeleton was made from
duralumin (an alloy used in aircraft frames) and its skin was vulcanized foam rubber. Controlled by steel cables and hydraulics, the snake could exert a force between 3.5 and 9.0 tons. Another two snakes of the same dimensions were made, one for stationary shots and one for decapitation by Schwarzenegger. The immense size of the mechanical snake meant that it did not fully fit onto the set, so only the front of it could be shown in the film. To create the scene at the Tree of Woe, the crew tethered live vultures to the branches, and created a mechanical bird for Schwarzenegger to bite. The dummy bird's feathers and wings were from a dead vulture, and its control mechanisms were routed inside the false tree. According to Sammon, "one of the greatest special effects in the film [was] Thulsa Doom's onscreen transformation into a giant snake". It involved footage of fake body parts, live and dummy snakes, miniatures, and other camera tricks combined into a flowing sequence with
lap dissolve. After Jones was filmed in position, he was replaced by a hollow framework with a rubber mask that was pushed from behind by a snake head-shaped puppet to give the illusion of Doom's facial bones changing. The head was then replaced with a mechanical snake; as it moved outwards, a crew member pressed a foot pedal to collapse the framework. For the final part of the sequence, a real snake was filmed on a miniature set.
Optical effects Few optical effects were used in
Conan the Barbarian. Milius professed ambivalence to fantasy elements, preferring a story that showcases accomplishments realized through one's own efforts without reliance on the supernatural. He also said that he followed the advice of Cobb and other production members on the matters of special effects. Peter Kuran's Visual Concepts Engineering (VCE) effects company was engaged in October 1981 to handle postproduction optical effects for
Conan. VCE had previously worked on films such as
Raiders of the Lost Ark and
Dragonslayer. Among their tasks for
Conan were adding glint and sparkle to the Eye of the Serpent and Valeria's Valkyrie armor. Not all of VCE's work made it to the final print; the flames of Valeria's funeral pyre were originally enhanced by the company, but were later restored to the original version. For the scene in which Valeria and Subotai had to fend off ghosts to save Conan's life, the "boiling clouds" were created by
George Lucas's
Industrial Light and Magic, while VCE was given the task of creating the ghosts. Their first attempt filming strips of film emulsion suspended in a vat of a viscous solution—elicited complaints from the producers, who thought the resulting spirits looked too much like those in a scene from
Raiders of the Lost Ark, so VCE turned to animation to complete the task. First, they drew muscular warriors in ghostly forms onto
cels and printed the images onto film with an Oxberry
animation stand and
contact printer. The Oxberry was fitted with a used lens that introduced
lens flares to the prints; VCE's intention with using the old lens was to make the resultant images of the ghosts seem as if they were of real-life objects filmed with a camera. The final composite was produced by passing the reels of film for the effects and the live-action sequences through a two-headed
optical printer and capturing the results with a camera. ==Music==