Arnold Schwarzenegger Says ‘Conan the Barbarian’ Sequel in the Works With Christopher McQuarrie Writing and Directing

UPDATE: The story has now been confirmed by THR, which reached out to 20th Century Studios and Christopher McQuarrie to verify the project, as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s involvement.

EARLIER: What? This is surprising news. Arnold Schwarzenegger, 78, is indicating that he could be returning to a franchise nearly 44 years after his last outing.

Schwarzenegger is telling TheArnoldFans not only that there are plans to potentially return in Dan Trachtenberg’s “Predator” franchise, but that “Commando 2” is in the works, and, most intriguingly, a “Conan the Barbarian” sequel is brewing.

“They just hired a fantastic writer/director who did Tom Cruise’s last four movies. They just hired him to write and direct ‘King Conan.’ Now, what they do is that they write the part. They don’t write them like I’m forty years old; you write it to be age-appropriate. I’ll still go in there and kick some ass, but it will be different.

They just hired a fantastic writer/director who did Tom Cruise’s last four movies. They just hired him to write and direct “King Conan.” Now, what they do is that they write the part. They don’t write them like i’m forty years old, you write it to be age-appropriate. I’ll still go in there and kick some ass but it will be different.

With King Conan, its a great old story that Conan was forty years as King and now he gets forced out of the kingdom and there’s conflict, of course, but somehow he comes back and there’s all kinds of madness, violence, magic and creatures and stuff like that. And now, of course, there’s all kinds of special effects. The studio has plenty of money to make those movies really big so i’m looking forward to all of those projects

I’m sure you noticed the detail that the guy who wrote the last four Tom Cruise movies is attached to helm the ‘Conan’ sequel — that would be none other than filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie, who may now be writing and directing.

There have been attempts to make “King Conan” for a few decades now. John Milius was originally supposed to direct in the 2000s, and the “The Matrix” directors, the Wachowskis, were briefly attached to produce. However, McQuarrie can be seen as an upgrade.

McQuarrie, who earned an Oscar for writing “The Usual Suspects,” made his directorial debut with 2000’s “The Way of the Gun.” Since then, he has become Tom Cruise’s most frequent creative partner, writing and directing action hits like “Jack Reacher” and the last four ‘Mission: Impossible’ movies. He also contributed as a writer and/or producer on several other Cruise projects, including “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Edge of Tomorrow.”

It makes sense that McQuarrie would venture away from Cruise, albeit for a brief amount of time, as the star recently shot, and is set to promote, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s “Digger” this year. He’s also made it clear that he wants to focus less on action movies in the coming years.

Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger, once Hollywood’s biggest action star, last appeared on the big screen almost seven years ago in 2019’s poorly received “Terminator: Dark Fate,” marking his last return to a major franchise. He did recently shoot Adam Shankman’s Christmas action comedy, “The Man With the Bag,” which Amazon/MGM seems to be positioning for late fall 2026.”