month later. Twentieth Century Fox handled the foreign distribution of the film. Universal originally scheduled Conans official release in the United States for the weekend before Memorial Day—the start of the film industry's summer season when schools close for a month-long holiday. To avoid competition with other big-budget, high-profile films, the studio advanced the release of Conan the Barbarian and on May 14, 1982, the film officially opened in 1,400 theaters across North America. Conan the Barbarian has been released in several different versions on home video. In addition to the 126-minute theatrical print, Universal distributed the film in 115-minute and 123-minute cuts on VHS in the 1980s. A slightly extended version was created for the film's special edition DVD release in 2000; it features five minutes of additional footage for a 131-minute running time. This same version was later released on blu-ray in 2011 with a remixed soundtrack, the version on Amazon Prime however, is the 126 minute US theatrical cut. Critical response The media's reactions toward Conan were polarized. Aspects of the film heavily criticized 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." The opinions of Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times and Richard Schickel of Time illustrate their colleagues' divided views. Ebert called Conan the Barbarian "a perfect fantasy for the alienated preadolescent", whereas Schickel said, "Conan is a sort of psychopathic Star Wars, stupid and stupefying." Although reviews were mixed at the time of the film's release, modern genre critics review the film more positively. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 65% based on 40 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Though Conan may take itself too seriously for some, this adventure film about a former slave seeking vengeance is full of quotable Schwarzenegger lines and gritty action." On Metacritic, the film received a score of 43 based on 10 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". At the time Conan was released, the media were inclined to condemn Hollywood's portrayals of violence; typical action films showed the hero attaining his goals by killing all who stood in his way. Conan was particularly condemned for its violent scenes, which Newsweeks Jack Kroll called "cheerless and styleless". In one of his articles for the San