‘The Masters of the Universe’ live action movie, based on the popular He-Man franchise from the popular Mattel toys series, has officially been shelved, with Mattel confirming that they are looking for other partners.
Initially meant to be a Netflix adaptation, according to Variety, close to $30 million has already been spent on development costs and the cash that’s been shelled out for casting, production and direction. Some sources estimate that the total costs for development were in fact twice that figure.
Pre-production on the ‘Masters of the Universe’ movie was well underway, but its massive budget of over $200 million which seemed to be increasing gradually became a big issue. The movie’s scheduled directors, Adam and Aaron Nee (‘The Lost City’) worked with producers to try to bring down the costs, and even considered shooting the movie back-to-back with a sequel in order to amortise the cost, but they couldn’t come to an agreement.
The latest attempt to bring ‘Masters of the Universe’ to live-action has been an on-going procedure since 2007, with companies shifting from Warner Brothers to Sony before moving to Netflix, but the project always ends up entering development hell.
Set on the planet Eternia, ‘Masters of the Universe’ largely focuses on the conflict between He-Man, a blonde muscle god, and his devious nemesis Skeletor. The characters formed a much-loved 1980s animated series, which developed a cross-generational fandom during its many runs, and then became a worldwide phenomenon, gathering big audiences in countries such as US, Canada, China, Japan, India, Russia, Mexico, Brazil, Vietnam, Australia, UK, Thailand, Philippines and many more.
Since then, ‘He-Man and The Masters of the Universe’ has spawned a number of spin-offs, reboots, and revivals. The first, and the only live-action adaptation of ‘Masters of the Universe’ hit the big screen back in 1987, which starred ‘Rocky 4’ actor Dolph Lundgren as He-Man.
When the streamer dropped the planned second live-action film from its slate, it was especially surprising, given that it has been the de-facto home of all things related to the ‘Masters of the Universe’ in recent years. Some of Netflix’s original animated series based on the franchise include ‘She-Ra and the Princesses of Power’ and the 2021 iteration of ‘He-Man and the Masters of the Universe’.
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