Jason Momoa's Remake Of An Arnold Schwarzenegger Movie Was A Big Box Office Flop

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Jason Momoa is one of Hollywood's go-to action stars these days. From his breakout role on "Game of Thrones" to headlining "Aquaman" (which stands as the highest-grossing DC superhero movie ever), he's had an impressive career. But every career has its speed bumps, and his first action movie as a lead didn't go well. Quite the opposite, 2011's "Conan the Barbarian" remake was a major flop.

Recall that director John Milius' 1982 take on "Conan the Barbarian" is considered one of the best sword and sorcery movies ever made. Indeed, his and Arnold Schwarzenegger's depiction of Conan (a character created by author Robert E. Howard in the 1930s) was the definitive version for an entire generation. As such, the remake had a high bar to clear.

Directed by Marcus Nispel, who was coming off the box office success of 2009's "Friday the 13th" remake at the time, "Conan the Barbarian" (2011) follows Conan (Momoa) as he carves a bloody path of revenge. Conan's mortal enemy, Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang), seeks the legendary Mask of Acheron, which will enable him to raise his wife from the dead and achieve immortality. But it will also unleash a malevolent force upon the land, leaving Conan and his companions to stop it.

After the project spent years in development hell, Millennium Films signed a deal to make a new "Conan" movie. But while everyone went into it with admirable ambitions, those ambitions weren't quite realized.

"We wanted to make something new, but embrace the eight decades of different types of Conan fans, and there are a lot of different types of fans out there," Momoa told Den of Geek in 2011. "We're walking a tightrope — you don't want to offend anyone, you want to make it better, make it its own."

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Marcus Nispel had proved himself capable of tackling pre-existing material prior to the "Conan the Barbarian" remake, having also directed the 2003 "Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake" (a box office hit that helped usher in a slasher remake trend). Jason Momoa also seemed like a great fit for the titular role. There's no replacing Arnold Schwarzenegger, but Momoa had the right stuff to make it work. Unfortunately, the end result didn't do much for critics or audiences at the time.

"Conan the Barbarian" holds a lousy 25% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes to go with its equally bad 30% audience rating. That didn't do the film any favors when Lionsgate released it in theaters on the weekend of August 19, 2011. It made just $10 million on its opening weekend against a whopping $90 million production budget. What's more, the film had to settle for fourth place behind "Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World" (which brought back Smell-O-Vision), with "The Help" and "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" landing in the number one and two spots, respectively, in their second and third weekends.

Despite a lack of overly stiff competition, "Conan" never recovered from its opening weekend, either. The movie finished its run with a terrible $21.3 million domestically to go with $42.2 million internationally for a grand total of $63.5 million worldwide. Suffice it to say, it was a sizable bomb that didn't come close to recouping its production budget, let alone its marketing expenses.

While official figures have never been released, Lionsgate reported a quarterly loss between $40 and $50 million around that time (per Bomb Report). No doubt, much of that can be chalked up to "Conan" underperforming in theaters.

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Jason Momoa, for his part, didn't mince words about the movie upon reflection years later. In fact, he flat-out acknowledged that his "Conan the Barbarian" movie "really sucked," to use his own worlds.

"I've been a part of a lot of things that really sucked, and movies where it's out of your hands," Momoa explained in 2022. "'Conan [the Barbarian]' was one of them. It's one of the best experiences I had, and it [was] taken over and turned into a big pile of s***."

Momoa didn't clarify who took it over or how, precisely, it was turned into a pile of s***, but evidently what ended up on screen wasn't what its creatives had in mind. Speaking with People that same year, director Marcus Nispel responded to Momoa's comments, stating:

"As a filmmaker in this system, you are a dog on many leashes. Trying to get 'Conan' done under those circumstances was the worst experience that I had, and I was as unhappy with the result. I am happy though that none of this got in the way of Jason's career path. [...] I always stood by the decision to make 'Conan' with him."

Meanwhile, it looks like things are coming full circle, what with Arnold Schwarzenegger having claimed that he's moving forward with a new "Conan the Barbarian" sequel earlier this year. He's long wanted to make a "King Conan" movie. Now, after lots of false stops and starts over the years, it looks like it may finally happen, and with Christopher McQuarrie ("Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning") at the helm, no less.

You can grab "Conan the Barbarian" on Blu-ray or DVD from Amazon.