Conan (the Barbarian) is getting a Netflix show

Conan’s getting a show on Netflix. No, not the Death Stranding guy, the Barbarian.

Deadline reported Wednesday that Netflix has a series in development, based on the Robert Howard pulp character, adapted over the past 90 years by Marvel Comics, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and others.

Deadline says Netflix reached a deal with Fredrik Malmberg, who owns companies that control both Conan Properties International and the producing studio, Pathfinder Media. Netflix gets an exclusive option to acquire and adapt rights to Conan’s literary form. The adaptations can be either live-action or animated, Deadline says.

There have been three TV adaptations of Conan to date, two of them animated, all of them beginning and ending in the 1990s. The most recent was the 1997 syndicated series Conan the Adventurer.

Conan the Cimmerian first appeared in Weird Tales’ December 1932 edition. Howard died in 1936, after writing 21 complete stories and publishing 17 of them. Conan’s longest run came from 1970 to 1995, in Marvel Comics’ Conan the Barbarian and the black-and-white Savage Sword of Conan magazine. In that span, Schwarzenegger portrayed the hero in two films, Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer.

Dark Horse Comics published six different series between 2003 and 2018, when Marvel reacquired publishing rights and resumed its Conan publications. And Jason Momoa took over the role for 2011’s Conan the Barbarian, which bombed, though it was narrated by Morgan Freeman.

Pathfinder Media/Conan Properties International have licensed three video games made or published by Funcom, the MMO Age of Conan, which debuted in 2008, 2018’s Conan Exiles, and 2019’s Conan Unconquered. Funcom also has a cute, co-op Conan game coming called Conan Chop Chop.