By Crom! 'Hellboy' Will Raise 'Conan'

News on Marcus Nispel's soon-to-be-filming Conan has been flying pretty fast and furious as of late, with Avatar's Stephen Lang and GI Joe's Rachel Nichols joining the cast as the titular warrior's nemesis and love interest. You can guess who will play which. The latest casting casting information to hit these here internets is that Mickey Rourke, who had previously been cast as Conan's father, is out of the film. His replacement?

Ron Motherf*cking Perlman. Yes. That is his real middle name.

Most audiences will remember Perlman as the heroic monster-hunting, world-saving demon in Guillermo Del Toro's excellent and waaay under-appreciated Hellboy films. Like Stephen Lang, he's one of those "Guys." You know, the guys who pop up in movies all the time and never give a bad performance but rarely, if ever, get the spotlight. Perlman's massive resume shifts rapidly between major studio films and direct-to-video junk and about 96.7% of his roles take full advantage of his terrifying physical presence and his trademark growling voice. Few actors look as prepared to kick your butt and abuse your arteries with sharp metal as Ron Perlman.

That makes this casting more or less perfect. I like Rourke just fine, but I think I will have an easier time buying Perlman as a fierce warrior because I'm fairly certain he hunts human beings for sport and laughs in the face of pain and danger.

The only downside to this casting is that Lang and Perlman will surely have their big fight in the first fifteen minutes. You know, where Conan's father is killed and the young warrior takes it upon himself to seek vengeance and so forth. Sadly, the rest of the film will pale in comparison to this opening, because the cinematic world will simply not be prepared for the bottled masculine amazing that will be LANG VS PERLMAN.

Conan will hit theaters with the sharp end of a bladed weapon in 2011.

(Via The Vulture)