In defence of Marcus Nispel, newly crowned director of Conan

16 June 2009

Gerard Wood

Judging by the generally unenthusiastic reaction to last week’s announcement that Marcus Nispel (Pathfinder) has been invited by Nu Image/Millennium Films to direct their Conan reboot, I can’t help but suspect I’m in the minority when I express some excitement with this decision.

To be sure, the rise and fall of directors prior to the commencement of filming is not the most thrilling news and I would have been happy to leave it to my fellow hacks to break news of Nispel’s ascension to the director’s throne, if only they’d been a little bit more enthusiastic about it.

Which would only have been fair, as Brett Ratner’s fall from the throne back in May went unmentioned on this site, even though I was never enthusiastic about Ratner (X-Men: The Last Stand) taking the reins of Robert E. Howard’s epic fantasy. As I said back when he was linked to the project, what this blood soaked tale is screaming out for is an epic make-over, and unfortunately Ratner's back-log of movies doesn't really inspire confidence. When he has striven for epic grandeur, he’s fallen short by a country mile. According to producer Joe Gatta the parting of the ways with Ratner was due more to “timing issues than anything else” (by all accounts, Ratner couldn’t commit to the producer’s time frame) and at the time Nispel’s name was just one of several mentioned as a contender.

So why the enthusiasm for Marcus Nispel, a director who might be seen by some as the bane of creative directing, having been responsible for one remake after another: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th and Pathfinder? Well, in one word, Pathfinder (2007). This is a seriously underrated movie and although it is based on the Norwegian Ofelas (1987), it stands more as a re-imagining of the story than a remake. I wrote a defence of this movie last year in which I suggested that flawed and simplistic though it is, there is considerable mythic depth to it. Its simplicity is that of myth, which is to say that it has hidden depths.

Having experienced Pathfinder I have no trouble believing Nispel when he claims that Conan is a job he has dreamed about since childhood. You only need to watch Pathfinder to appreciate the strong influence on Nispel’s filmic vision of Conan author Robert E. Howard, and the visceral artwork of iconic illustrator Frank Frazetta. I’d go so far as to say that Nispel’s Pathfinder demonstrates a far better feel for Howard's fantasy than even John Milius’s otherwise excellent 1982 Conan starring Arnie.

The script for Conan has been penned by Joshua Oppenheimer and Thomas Dean Donnelly who have apparently steeped themselves in Howard's classic tales of the 1930s for their inspiration. And with production set to start later this year in Bulgaria and South Africa, the one outstanding question, of course, is who will be cast as the muscle bound barbarian?

So, what do you think? Is Nispel a good choice or is a Conan remake doomed to mediocrity? And who would be a good choice to don the barbarian’s loin cloth?

Related Articles

Marcus Nispel’s Conan the Barbarian - a one dimensional movi...
Marcus Nispel’s Conan the Barbarian doesn’t really justify t...

Solomon Kane, Redemption and White Supremacy...
Michael J. Bassett's Solomon Kane is taking its good time to...

Solomon Kane: a dark and bloody triumph?...
Early reviews of Michael J. Bassett's Solomon Kane, which ha...

By Crom! Brett Ratner to direct new Conan movie?...
The winds have carried news to Crom on his mountain, and Cro...

Pathfinder (2007): a Viking epic that strays from the path b...
Reviews of Marcus Nispel's Pathfinder are almost invariably ...