giant snake and cuts him down from crucifixion; the thief also cries for his companion during Valeria's cremation, with the explanation that "(h)e is Conan, a Cimmerian. He won't cry, so I cry for him." Conan's enemy, Thulsa Doom, is an amalgamation of two of Howard's creations. He takes his name from the villain in Howard's Kull of Atlantis series of stories, but is closer in character to Thoth-Amon, a Stygian sorcerer in "The Phoenix on the Sword". The Doom in the film reminded critics of Jim Jones, a cult leader whose hold on his followers was such that hundreds of them obeyed his orders to commit suicide. Milius said his research on the ancient orders of the Hashishim and the Thuggee was the inspiration for Doom's snake cult. In the original Howard stories, the worship of Set, though all too fearsome, is no sect; rather, it is the centuries-old formalized state religion of Stygia (which is virtually a theocracy). Production Background From the 1970s, licensing problems had stood in the way of producing film versions of the Conan stories. Lancer Books, which had acquired the rights in 1966, went into receivership, and legal disputes existed over their disposition of the publishing rights, which ultimately led to them being frozen under injunction. Edward Summer suggested Conan as a potential project to executive producer Edward R. Pressman in 1975, and after being shown the comics and Frazetta's artwork, Pressman was convinced. Two years were needed to secure the film rights. The two main parties involved in the lawsuit, Glenn Lord and de Camp, formed Conan Properties Incorporated to handle all licensing of Conan-related material, and Pressman was awarded the film rights shortly afterwards. He spent more than US$100,000 in legal fees to help resolve the lawsuit, and the rights cost him another $7,500. The success of Star Wars in 1977 increased Hollywood's interest in producing films that portray "heroic adventures in supernatural lands of fables". The film industry's attention was drawn to the popularity of Conan among young male Americans, who were buying reprints of the stories with Frazetta's art and adaptations by Marvel Comics. Development John Milius first expressed interest in directing a film about Conan in 1978 after completing the filming of Big Wednesday, according to Buzz Feitshans, a producer who frequently worked with Milius. (Milius had long been an admirer of films like 1958's The Vikings.) Milius and