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March 10, 2008


IGN Movies recently broke the news that British filmmaker Neil Marshall is in the running to direct Lionsgate's new Conan movie, and now the Doomsday director himself has confirmed that he has indeed met with the producers about helming the sword & sorcery adventure.

"I had one meeting, and I haven't heard back," Marshall told IGN in telephone interview. "I know they're working on the script now," he adds.

We also asked Marshall, whose two previous films have featured strong female characters, how the estrogen factor might figure into Conan, were he to take the reigns of the project. "I don't really know yet. I'd quite fancy just doing a film with blokes though," the director joked.

And if he were to land the gig, Marshall (The Descent, Dog Soldiers) wouldn't necessarily be influenced by the Robert E. Howard character's comic book history.

"It's no bearing on the comic strips at all," Marshall said in a conversation with MoviesBlog.MTV.com. "I'm more influenced by [Frank] Frazetta's fantasy art," said Marshall, who described himself as "a huge fan" of 1981's Conan the Barbarian.

Marshall envisions Conan as "a rip-roaring adventure, within a semi-historical world," but cautions fans that he might not end up getting the job.