Happy Birthday John Milius! (Part 2)

So we have established John Milius as a talented screenwriter and filmmaker who is friends with George Lucas, Steven Spielberg & Francis Ford Coppola he is responsible for "Fixing" the script for one of the greatest films of all time "Jaws" (1975)  he made $1.5m off "Star Wars" (1977) for doing nothing! and he wrote "Apocalypse Now" (1979) as well as making films and developing as a director.  

After the financial disappointment of "Big Wednesday" Milius dissolved his production company "The A Team" but not before they produced "1941" (1979) for Steven Spielberg,
"Hardcore" (1979) for Paul Schrader and early films for Robert Zemeckis.  

In the late 70's Milius wanted to direct a fantasy adventure film and after the insane success of "Star Wars" (1977) everyone in Hollywood did ! 

But what Milius didn't know he was destined to co-write and direct a great influential film of the sword-and-sorcery genre based on a character torn from the pages of the 1930's Weird Tales pulp magazines.

In the 1970's licensing and rights issues had stopped anyone producing a film version of the Conan stories. Lancer Books, who had bought the rights in 1966 had gone bust and the rights had been caught up in legal wrangling but movie producer Edward R. Pressman perused securing the rights in 1975 after being shown some of the Marvel comic books, It then took Two years and $107,500. (that's just over half a million dollars in 2024) to secure the film rights.

The two year legal fight seemed like a good investment when due to the success of Star Wars in 1977 Hollywood was falling over itself for "heroic adventures in supernatural lands of fables".
Pressman employed Oliver Stone to write a script, unfortunately they estimated that Stone's script would cost $40 million to realise and Pressman was aiming to spend half of that amount. Pressman and Stone struggled to secure a director for the project but the producer did manage to engage Ron Cobb, who had just been the set designer on Ridley Scott's
"Alien" (1979). Cobb made a series of paintings and drawings for the Conan production for Pressman before leaving to consult on another project where he saw John Milius. Cobb showed Milius his painting and drawings for Conan as well as Stone's script this reignited Milius's interest, He had long wanted to make a Conan style fantasy adventure film, Milius was keen to direct as long as he could "Modify" Stone's script but unfortunately Milius was under contract to producer Dino De Laurentiis, an influential producer with experience in making films in the fantasy genre. Milius raised the idea of taking on Conan with De Laurentiis, and after a year-long negotiation, Pressman and De Laurentiis agreed to co-produce. De Laurentiis took over all financing and production, and Pressman gave up all claims to the film's profits but he retained approval over changes to the script, cast, and director.
Milius was formally appointed as director in early 1979, and Cobb was named as the production designer. De Laurentiis convinced Universal Pictures to become the film's distributor for North America. The studio also contributed to the production budget of $17.5 million and prepared $12 million to advertise the film.

According to Schwarzenegger, Pressman's "low-key" approach and "great inner strength" convinced him to join the project. Schwarzenegger was paid $250,000 and placed on retainer with the terms of the contract restricting him from starring in other sword-and-sorcery films. Milius wanted Arnold to be more athletic rather than just big so Schwarzenegger undertook an 18-month training regimen before shooting began. Running, lifting weights, rope climbing, horseback riding, and swimming. He also slimmed down from 240 to 210 pounds.

As well as Conan two other principle roles were played by novice actors.

Subotai was played by Gerry Lopez a champion surfer whose only acting experience was playing himself in "Big Wednesday". 

Valeria was played by Sandahl Bergman, a dancer who had had bit parts in several theatre productions and films. She was recommended to Milius by Bob Fosse, who had directed her in All That Jazz (1979).

Milius said he chose actors because their appearances to fitted their roles and thinking their inexperience would be a good thing because the actors would not have any preconceived notions to project into their roles. Although Milius had reservations when he witnessed the first few takes by the novices at work but he believed in them and saw their skills develop on set and he altered the script on the fly to match their abilities.

The critics reaction to Conan was polarised. Aspects of the film heavily criticised by one side were regarded in a positive light by the other; Professor Kenneth von Gunden wrote,

"for every positive review the film garnered, it received two negative ones."

Roger Ebert called Conan the Barbarian,

"a perfect fantasy for the alienated preadolescent",

where Richard Schickel of Time magazine wrote,

"Conan is a sort of psychopathic Star Wars, stupid and stupefying." 

Regardless of what critics said at the time he film grossed $79 million at the Box Office against a production budget of $20 million and as I'm sure everyone knows "Conan the Barbarian" has become a huge cult classic and it was estimated in 2007 is has made over $300 million via its box office and home entertainment performance over 25 years and in January 2024 "Conan the Barbarian" was release on 4K UHD Blu-ray in the U.S. 

Arnold and Milius hanging out with fine cigars & posing with Conan's sword. (circa 2018)

In 1983 Milius got the call to come in and "Punch Up" the Script for the forthcoming

Spielberg & Lucas movie. Who knows what he added or took out? I know it's not the greatest script ever but I imagine it was worse before John had a crack at it.  "Chilled Monkey Brains!"

Red Dawn! more like Red Scare! this film is silly and i personally don't like it, Cold War fear mongering for 3rd amendment fetishists, This film is the moment when you really figure out Milius is a Republican but like Schwarzenegger he is a old school Abraham Lincoln Republican which is still not something I can get behind but he's not one of these new fascist ones. 

The film was a modest success at the time and I'm sure it has some kind of following... Next!

Milius wrote and directed a movie called "Farewell to the King" (1989) based on the french novel "L'Adieu au Roi" by Pierre Schoendoerffer Starring Nick Nolte, Nigel Havers & James Fox. Yip! I've never heard of it either! it cost $16m and made $2m...so moving on!

He then directed "Flight of the Intruder" (1991) a film which he didn't write and was also a box office bomb. Do not despair!   

John was drafted into "Script Doctor" the 1990 film "The Hunt For Red October" and "Eraser" (1996) both uncredited.

Milius was credited with co-writing the screen play for the screen adaptation of the

Tom Clancy novel Clear and Present Danger, the film "Clear and Present Danger" (1994) Starring Harrison Ford, Willem Dafoe, Anne Archer & James Earl Jones. It was a massive face melting Block Buster success! made for $62 million it grossed $215.9 million at the Box Office!

John did some more uncredited "Punching up" on the multi award winning $480m grossing 1998 movie "Saving Private Ryan" and "Behind Enemy Lines" (2001)

If you want an insight into what working with John Milius was like.

The Coen Brothers apparently based the character of Walter Sobchak played by John Goodman in "The Big Lebowski" (1998) on Milius. 

In the early 2000's John's accountant embezzled an estimated $3 million from him leaving his in significant financial  peril. 

A sad story was Milius applied to be a staff writer for the HBO TV series Deadwood, The showrunner David Milch was slightly confused about why John "Apocalypse Now" Milius was wanting to work in a writers room, Milius pleaded and broke down saying he needed the work to pay for his son's tuition at law school, so Milch simply just paid the fees.

Milius's career turned a corner when he helped create the BBC/HBO television series Rome, which allowed him to repay Milch.

In 2010 John was working on preproduction for a film biography of Genghis Khan and a proposed TV series called Pharaoh, set during the reign of Queen Hatshepsut,

When he suffered a stroke. The stoke initially left him paralysed and nonverbal. 

He gradually regained movement but was still non-verbal in 2013 but seems to have made a good recovery walking unassisted and talking in 2018, 

He may be difficult and I definitely don't agree with him on a lot of things but he is a very talented man who has contributed a lot to the landscape of American Cinema.    

My recommendations to check out,  

Dirty Harry (1971) and Magnum Force (1973)

Milius is uncredited but did "Punch Up" Dirty Harry's script but he did write Magnum Force both are worth a watch.

"Dirty Harry" (1971) & "Magnum Force" (1973)

are both available to rent on Apple TV & Prime video for £3.49 each.

You can buy and keep them on Blu-ray by getting them in a box set