It has been 29 years since a fantasy icon took on a role in a new movie based on a character by Robert E. Howard. Of course, most fans know about Howard from his Conan the Barbarian stories and the movies based on that hero. This made Howard the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre, and it wasn’t just Conan that Howard created. He also had the Solomon Kane series and stories about Bran Mak Morn, King Kull, and El Borak. Not only have there been movies released about Conan, but one 1990s fantasy television icon took on one of those other Howard characters in a movie.
On August 29, 1997, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys star Kevin Sorbo took on the role of King Kull in Kull the Conqueror.
In 1997, John Nicolella’s Kull the Conqueror hit theaters, based on Howard’s novel The Hour of the Dragon. What is most interesting about that source is that the story was based on a Conan the Barbarian novel. However, while the original script was written as a Conan movie, things changed when Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to return to play the character in this movie. As a result, the producers reached out to Kevin Sorbo, who played Hercules in the hit television series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Sorbo was reluctant to take on a role so heavily defined by Schwarzenegger, so the script was retooled.
While the movie was still based on a Conan story, the character was changed to Kull, with the origin of the new character replacing the Conan mythos. Charles Edward Pogue only slightly based the story on Howard’s novel and went with a mostly original tale. The plot sees Kull made into the king after he killed the previous one in self-defense. This is when an evil witch named Akivasha threatens his kingdom with an army from hell to restore her dark empire. The dark magic and the ancient warrior helped add another movie to the sword and sorcery genre.
In the original novels, Kull of Atlantis is almost a duplicate of Conan the Barbarian, although Kull was created first. He is a mighty warrior who is ruthless and courageous in battle. However, the difference is that Kull is more philosophical and brooding, and he actually takes into consideration the decisions he makes and how they affect his people. The first Kull story was “The Shadow Kingdom,” published in 1929 in Weird Tales. In all, there were 15 Kull works published, with all but three released after Howard’s death. Ironically, Kull’s main villain was Thulsa Doom, the same villain who Conan faced in the 1982 movie, Conan the Barbarian.
Kull the Conqueror was a box office bomb when it was released. While Kevin Sorbo was a major television star in the fantasy genre, he never carried that success over to fantasy on the big screen. With a $35 million budget, the film only made $6.1 million at the box office. It also received terrible reviews, with a 21% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 24% audience score. Critics admitted that there are fun moments, but there were complaints that it seemed like an attempt to capitalize on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess without adding anything new to the endeavor.
While Kull the Conqueror was not a success when it was released as a movie, the character was still popular in other formats. Marvel Comics released Kull comics between 1971 and 1985, with three solo series based on the character. Kull also crossed over into The Savage Sword of Conan series and other Marvel anthology books. In 1989, Marvel published the graphic novel Kull: The Vale of Shadow by Alan Zelenetz and Tony DeZuniga.
King Kull even appeared in a flashback scene in the story “Saga of the Serpent Crown, Chapter 3: Serpent in the Garden” in X-Men Annual #13 by Peter Sanderson and Mark Bagley, and in the story “The Book of the Vishanti: The Curse of the Darkhold Part III – Dawn of Blood” in Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #11 (1989) by Roy Thomas, R.J.M. Lofficer, and David Day. Between his own solo series and these crossover events, Kull was a major character in Marvel Comics for years. Dark Horse Comics, IDW Publishing, Arrow Comics, and Titan Comics have since acquired the license to release Kull stories since Marvel let the character’s rights lapse.
