Jason Momoa, who plays the dreadlock-wearing Ronon Dex on Stargate Atlantis, is in negotiations to portray Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian in a new film that Marcus Nispel is directing for Nu Image/Millennium Films.  The reboot of cinema’s number one barbarian franchise in which Conan avenges the death of his father and the slaughter of his tribesmen, will begin principal photography in Bulgaria in the middle of March.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, producers of the Conan film had narrowed their choice to Momoa and Kellan Lutz of Twilight before settling on the six foot-four-inch half-Hawaiian, half Iowan actor, who will also be seen in HBO’s adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones.