Empire got the chance to speak with Conan producer Joe Gatta who revealed that Brett Ratner is no longer directing the Conan reboot, and that they are currently looking for someone else to direct.
“We’re currently in the process of hiring a director,” he told us. “For the past six months we were discussing the movie with Brett Ratner, and for more timing issues than anything else we had to part ways with Brett. We all wanted him to do it, believe me; just the timing didn’t work. But you never know what can happen.”
However, having no director hasn’t stopped them from setting a start date:
“We have a potential start-date on Conan of August 24. And we’ll be shooting in Bulgaria. I would say though the emphasis is on Conan [rather than Red Sonja]. It’s our crown jewel here at the company and that will be the leader. Red Sonja probably won’t happen until next year, as far as making it goes. So we want to launch Conan and reinvent the franchise.”
As for the hiring of Conan himself, you might want to start pumping some serious iron: Gatta says that, “We’ll have an open casting call: as soon as we hire our director the search is on.”
Personally I didn’t think Ratner was the best director for the project. Whoever they eventually hire will give us a clear idea which direction they are heading. Will it be faithful gritty reboot or a commerical popcorn flick?
