LOS ANGELES » Conan the Barbarian doesn’t ask for much. “I live, I love, I slay, I am content,” he’s fond of saying. But the people behind today’s sword and sandals remake have more complicated ambitions for the big bruiser: putting some barbarity back into the barbarian.

Created in the 1930s by pulp author Robert E. Howard and immortalized by Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1982’s camp movie classic, Conan the Barbarian evolved from a menacing killer into an amiable superhero.

Lionsgate, Nu Image and Paradox Entertainment hope their new “Conan the Barbarian” movie restores some of the swordsman’s edge. The $90 million 3-D movie culminates a long campaign by Paradox to return Conan to the screen. Starting in 2002, the Sweden-based company began acquiring Conan’s copyrights and Howard’s library.

“When we started negotiations, it was prior to ‘Lord of the Rings,’ prior to Marvel movies (such as ‘Iron Man’), prior to ‘Harry Potter.’ People would see what we were doing and scratch their heads,” said Fredrik Malmberg, Paradox’s president and chief executive. “The brand was quite well-known — the awareness was high — but the way people approached it was all about the 1980s movie.”

In other words, when they thought of Conan they thought of a waxed-chest, thickly muscled Schwarzenegger, not some maniac who would rip your beating heart out of your chest.

In short order, Paradox collaborated with Dark Horse Comics on a new, darker Conan series, launched the violent Funcom/Eidos online video game “Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures” and entered into a Howard publishing deal with Random House. But the “Conan” movie remake, in development at Warner Bros., proved a trickier endeavor.

In 2007, Avi Lerner’s Nu Image won the remake rights after Warner Bros. abandoned the project, and Nu Image sold the film’s U.S., Canadian and British rights to Lionsgate for $25 million. Lerner was talked out of casting Vin Diesel in the lead — newcomer Jason Momoa from HBO’s epic fantasy series “Game of Thrones” plays Conan.

The very thing that makes “Conan” an attractive movie idea — a strong following among men — is also its liability. “It’s confined to comic book fans and video gamers,” Malmberg said.

Yet before Lionsgate could sell the movie to that broader audience, it first had to placate Conan’s most militant followers. “Conan is beloved by the hard-core geeks,” said Tim Palen, Lionsgate’s marketing chief. “And for a lot of geeks, Arnold Schwarzenegger is Conan — and no one can fill his sandals. That’s one of the first things we had to overcome.”

While that audience is a sliver of all potential ticket buyers, “if they turn on you, there’s no redemption,” Palen said.

In its earliest positioning for the film in “Conan” posters, Lionsgate drew on artwork by Frank Frazetta, a respected science fiction and fantasy illustrator who did Conan paperback covers in the 1960s. “That’s good shorthand for the rabid, opinionated fan base that we’re going back to the roots of who Conan is,” Palen said.

Audience tracking surveys show that while older men are “Conan’s” biggest potential audience, followed closely by younger men, younger women are far more interested in the horror thriller “Fright Night” and the romantic drama “One Day,” both of which premiere this weekend.

Early reviews for “Conan” have been mixed to poor, which could limit its playability.

Conan might be a killing machine once again, but making a killing at the box office looks to be a bit more challenging.