Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Forgotten Fantasy Sequel Is Coming to Streaming in 2026

With the change in audience preference, good sword-and-sorcery movies are produced few and far between. But at one point, the genre has given us some entertaining movies, including Arnold Schwarzenegger’s breakout role in Conan the Barbarian. While the original film made waves with fans and critics, its underrated sequel, Conan the Destroyer, did not find the same love. But now it has the potential to find a new audience when it slashes its way to streaming.

Conan the Destroyeris coming to Netflix in January 2026, per CBR. Directed by Richard Fleischer, the sequel continues Conan’s journey, who is still grieving the loss of his love, Valeria. He is recruited by the treacherous Queen Taramis (Sarah Douglas), who promises that if he successfully completes a quest, she will use her magic to bring Valeria back from the dead. While the original movie was loved for its grim, R-rated tone, the family-friendly sequel did not sit well with the fans or critics. It has a 29% Rotten Tomatoes rating from the critics and another 38% from fans.

The rating and fan displeasure ultimately did not hurt the commercial business of the movie, which earned approximately $100 million worldwide against an $18 million budget. The movie has brilliant performances by Schwarzenegger as the titular Conan and Grace Jones as Zula. The movie also cast Wilt Chamberlain as Bombaata, Mako as Akiro, Tracey Walter as Malak, Douglas as Queen Taramis, Olivia d’Abo as Princess Jehnna, Pat Roach as Thoth-Amon, Jeff Corey as Grand Vizier, and Sven-Ole Thorsen as Togra.

Arnold Schwarzenegger Wants More ‘King Conan’ Sequels

The franchise tried to revive itself with a 2011 reboot titled Conan the Barbarian with Game of Thrones star Jason Momoa at the helm, but the movie did not perform well for various reasons. It was a critical and financial failure, grossing only $63.5 million against a $90 million budget. Nonetheless, Schwarzenegger previously told Collider that he’d like to have more sequels to his breakout role, “Sometimes I wish that we could do more Conan sequels, because I think that if you have the right director and the right writing, there could be a really, really good franchise to continue King Conan and stuff like that. So I mean, there’s a lot of movies that have done that could have a sequel.”

Conan the Destroyer drops on Netflix on January 1, 2026. You can check out the trailer above and stay tuned to Collider for more such updates.