News conan the barbarian Arnold Schwarzenegger Set to Return as Conan in King Conan From Mission Impossible‘s Christopher McQuarrie What is best in life? To return to your old franchises, apparently. By Molly Templeton | Published on March 11, 2026 Photo: Universal Pictures Comment 0 Share New Share Photo: Universal Pictures It has been many, many, many years (42 of them, to be precise), but after all this time, Arnold Schwarzenegger is heading back to the land of barbarians—as its king. The Hollywood Reporter has the news that Schwarzenegger is attached to a new Conan the Barbarian movie, King Conan, which also has a somewhat surprising writer-director on board: Christopher McQuarrie. McQuarrie’s big breakout was writing the script for The Usual Suspects, but in more recent years he’s been the mastermind behind the Mission: Impossible franchise, directing and co-writing the last four films, including Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning. That film was promoted as the last entry in the franchise, despite not feeling like a final film in the least; the filmmakers (and star Tom Cruise) certainly left some doors open for the franchise to revive itself someday. But if McQuarrie is heading off to Conan land, that might indicate he really is done with Cruise and his ludicrous stunts. Schwarzenegger told the crowd at his Arnold Sports Festival that King Conan is “a great story where Conan was 40 years as king” before being forced from his kingdom. “Then there’s conflict, of course, and then he somehow comes back, and then there’s all kinds of madness and violence and magic and creatures. Now, of course, you have all the special effects, and the studio system has plenty of money to make those movies really big.” A couple of years back, Schwarzenegger was talking about the then-up-in-the-air rights to a potential Conan sequel, and how he wanted the next film to lean into the fact that he’s not a young man anymore. “I think you do it like Unforgiven, where you play the age,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2023. Apparently, the former Governator may be returning to several of the franchises where he made his name. According to Variety, he told the sports festival audience, “As a matter of fact, Fox Studios has kind of rediscovered Arnold. They’ve come to me and said, ‘We want you to do Predator, we just got a script for you to do Commando 2.’” The actor sorta kinda appeared in the animated film Predator: Killer of Killers, in which his character (among others from the franchise) was seen in a suspended animation chamber. It may have been a hint of things to come.[end-marl] The post Arnold Schwarzenegger Set to Return as Conan in <i>King Conan</i> From <i>Mission Impossible</i>‘s Christopher McQuarrie appeared first on Reactor.