Having grown up in the 1980s glued to the cartoon and collecting the toys, I’ve been desperate to see MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE done justice on the big-screen. As 7 year-old, I also loved the 1987 film starring Dolph Lundgren and Frank Langella, but as time went on and I grew up, it became obvious it was throughly shit.
Having the man who cut his directing teeth on the dire STEP UP sequels put in charge of the new film doesn’t bode well. Certainly from John M. Chu’s first action effort, this years earlier sequel G.I. JOE: RETALIATION, ‘character’ isn’t his strong suit. However, we live in hope for a great MOTU adventure but Chu remains unsure how his take will turn out and seems more interesting in talking up another G.I. JOE, with Dwayne Johnson taking the reins.
I think that what helps us is knowing what we do in ‘Joe’ and knowing that ‘Masters’ has to be very different and has to feel very different, but the script for ‘Masters of the Universe’ is what really hooked me. I love ‘Masters of the Universe,’ but I didn’t know necessarily how to make it into a movie until I read the script and thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I totally see it. I get how this is going to shake it up, I get how this is different from any other thing,’ and it got me really really excited. We’re still working on that one and ‘Joe’ has momentum right now. The audience has been great and they want another one, so we’re rushing to get that done and Dwayne has a certain time period so it may end up that ‘Joe’ goes first in all those things and I don’t know if ‘Masters of the Universe’ will wait for me or where that’s going to end up. But right now it’s been great. We’ve been designing a ton of stuff for ‘Masters of the Universe’ as a really beautiful, grounded, honest world – that’s the best way I can describe it. It’s everything you want ‘Masters of the Universe’ to be in terms of the fantasy but not in a way theatrical crazy way. It is actually a gorgeous world that we’re doing in the initial visual concepts that we’ve been making.
MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE has been in the works for years now and was previously attached to John Woo. The way Chu is talking it’s certainly a long way off from the big-screen and is essentially a pipe-dream for the foreseeable future. Don’t be surprised to see Johnson cast as the hulking, heroic He-Man either, when that time comes. “I HAVE THE POWER”!
Source: ComingSoon
