See, the best thing about the first (and only, really) Conan movie was that it made *no* concession to the family market. Conan is not Hagrid with a sword. A lot of people dissed Arnie's acting in that film, but I think he (non)acted it perfectly. Conan was not supposed to be Kevin Sorbo. He was just supposed to slay, drink, and glower a lot. Not a real deep character, but a lot of fun to watch.
They were very cheap to make, and they were cranked out like spaghetti westerns in the 80's. Xena and Hercules pretty much damned the genre to TV obscurity.
Fire and Ice *did* succeed in some ways. The art was actually pretty good, as was the animation. The story, sadly, was exactly the sort of thing people are talking about when they say they hate S&S fantasy.
Other good places to look for S&S fantasy fiction: Any of Moorecock's Elric stuff. Sort of a skinny albino sorceror mopey goth Conan.