Grayskull: Masters of the Universe - Part 2

Status
Not open for further replies.
I'm still at a loss as why the Justin Marks script got as much buzz as it did about 7 years ago. It was NOT a good script at all.

I think it was the treatment that he wrote that got all the buzz. Then when he wrote the actual screenplay people were like "This isn't what you said the script would be like in your treatment" and he was dropped as the writer.

If I remember correctly, his treatment hit all of the high points that would make He-Man fanboys pitch a tent in their pants. He claimed he was combining all of the best parts of the original cartoon, the 2002 reboot, and the original mini-comics that came with the action figures (just what pretty much everyone on this thread says that they want to see).

Then what we ended up with was a screenplay with no He-Man, no Skeletor, no Battlecat, no Orko, no transformation, pretty much the exact opposite of what he had promised us.

I think there should be a link to the interview where he talks about the treatment that he wrote on page 1 of the first version of this thread.

Edit: Just looked it up and found the interview I was referring to.

http://www.iesb.net/index.php?option...3715&Itemid=99


Justin Marks Talks He-Man



Written by IESB Staff
Wednesday, 14 November 2007
Toyfare magazine chats with Justin marks about his vision for He-Man that will hopefully make it to the big screen.



In the new issue of Toy fare out this week (who stills buys magazines?) screenwriter Justin Marks talks about what he has planned for He-Man and Skeletor.

I have to say that we here at the IESB have been hearing some horrible rumors about MOTU. After reading this interview with Justin, it did give me some hope, it appears that he gets it (hopefully), fingers crossed.

TOYFARE: How did you get involved with writing the He-Man script?

JUSTIN MARKS: He-Man came about as a result of a mutual collaboration with [co-screenwriter] Neil Ellice and the guys at Silver Pictures. We came together and married a take that we all really loved and that we felt would be true to Eternia for the first time. And we campaigned and pushed-everything short of getting on my hands and knees begging-for Mattel to hear it, and they did. We got in the room and we basically spoke through not only one movie, but three movies, all the way down through our dreams for the titles for the second and thrid movies and which characters appeared when.

Do you think the public is going to have a hard time accepting He-Man as an action hero?

A lot of people think of He-Man and they think of that guy with the bob haircut and the Arnold Schwarzenegger archetype and laugh him off, but those of us who grew up on him, we don't laugh about He-Man at all. There are great ideas in there that we've never seen on film...and hopefully we soon will.

Is he still going to be called He-Man?

[Laughs] We're doing something very interesting with that. But...yeah. Obviously you can't make a He-Man movie and be afraid of the word "He-Man." You have to get into there. But I think fans will be very pleased when they see how "He-Man" is spoken.

Do you have a villain yet?

Oh, it's a Skeletor movie. Obviously we can only speak in broad strokes, but how about this? Thus far, at least, there are no invented new characters plopped into it-and if we and Mattel have our way there will never be. We're talking about the He-Man mythology. So what we're talking about doing, in the same way as Batman Begins, we're going back to the original thing, let's build it from the ground up again. How can we find our way in? How can we jump into Adam's life at an interesting point where new audiences will respect him? It's an Adam origin story, and it's a Skeletor origin story. We want to see where both of them come from and how they got that way. If we don't see the humanity and the truth in what Skeletor's trying to do, then the story's not compelling.

Are there any wishes you would have for casting?

Let me just say we don't want wreslters. [Laughs] I'm not saying he should be He-Man, but Michael Biehn is my all-time favorite actor. You go to Hicks or Kyle Reese, and James Cameron created that action hero type, and I feel like I always write with the mindset of that type of hero who doesn't exist these days. He's that guy who, if he took a weapon and said, "Follow me," I'd be right behind him.

How are you going to incorporate all the..let's say disparate elements of the He-Man mythology?

He-Man is sword-and-sandals meets science fiction. If you avoid it and just try to make it sword and sandals, then it becomes a boring movie. If you just try to make it science fiction, it's going to be really kitschy and weird, and it's not going to be true to He-Man. You have to make it both. So we have to come up with specific ideas, grounded, that would spawn a world that was people carrying around swords, and yet, guys like Tri-Klops running around with his spinning visor and this sort of nano-technological way about him. What is the sorcery that can create stuff like that?

So you're really sticking fairly closely to the original world?

There's some stuff going around...we should clear that up. There's some rumor spreading that he's a soldier in the Iraqi war. Where did they get that? This is an Eternian movie and it's a story about an Eternian hero. We're not going to Earth, here. We're not going to the modern world. We're not going to a strip mall in the Valley. [Laughs] By the way, I think there are really great things about the original Masters of the Universe.

What kind of questions?

If you remember, He-Man [toys], very early on, had two halves of the sword-Skeletor had half, He-Man had half and you could clip them together. And that was discarded by the cartoon. And I'm not sure if I can tell you but we finally got the answer to [why there are two halves], because it'll be something that I think can affect the movie.

So Mattel has been pretty helpful to work with, then?

Mattel has been really great when we say, "Look, we need something for this scene, something along the lines of this." And they usually have stuff in their library that's like, "No, it should be like this," and we're like, "Great!" So it's been really fan-friendly in that regard. When this movie comes out-and hopefully some day it will, because things look really stacked in its favor after Transformers-people will watch this movie and say, "I can't believe it took this long for a He-Man movie to get to the screen," because of how naturally the original material suits itself to a great, Lord of the Rings-scale-and yet high-tech-cool movie.

You have to admit, that description sounded pretty badass.
 
Last edited:
My mistake, it was Alex Litvak's screenplay that got absolutely everything wrong that you can possibly get wrong when writing a MOTU screenplay.

so the new writer talks about his ideas and where the script is going

http://mediap1.roadkast.com/moviefea...lex-Litvak.mp3

in summary

no he-man only adam
no battlecat
no transformation
no skull on skeletor
"skeletor" will only use magic
heroes will only use tech
no muscles on he-man

just sound so much like the source:whatever::csad:

Here was my response.

This will never be made. It has to be approved by Mattel before it can be greenlit. I highly doubt Mattel would greenlight this garbage. The studio will bring them the script and they'll be like, "Ummm, you know this is a He-Man movie right?"

"Yeah."

"So where's He-Man?"

"He-Man's a stupid character, so I got rid of him."

"Uh-huh. And why doesn't Skeletor have a skull?"

"I think that looks stupid."

"Right. Why isn't He-Man . . . I mean, Prince Adam, riding Battle Cat?"

"Riding a giant green tiger's a stupid idea, I didn't like it."

"Okay. Why is Prince Adam described as being scrawny and small?"

"Because that makes him seem more heroic, defeating the bad guys without having to rely on gigantic superhuman muscles."

"Mmm-hmmm. Do you know where the nearest welfare office is?"

"No. Why?"

"Because you're gonna need to go there tomorrow if you have any plans to pay your rent on time. SECURITY!!! Throw this mentally challenged 'artist' out of the building! If he ever tries to get back in? Shoot him!"

Then Brian Braddok wrote:

:woot:

''So, why is there no Skeletor?"

"Well, our research shows that there's a certain demographic that may be offended with the prospect of a bad guy called Skeletor''

''I don't beleive it - what demographic?''

"Skeletons.

''Come again?''

''The Skeleton demographic. Apparently the Skeleton community think they've got a bad rep already through films like Jason & The Argonauts and the Karate Kid. They're trying to change that perception and I'm told they'll lobby quite hard against the movie if we have Skeletor as the main villain.''

''*sigh* Ok, what about Hordak?''

''Again, there's a demographic.''

''You're joking. Who?''

''****es. It's a whole big misunderstanding invloving a typo that got made once back in the 80's, but nevertheless, the ****es are agaisnt the use of a character called Hordak being the villain.They're concerned that it will put them in a bad light.''

''Give me strength''

''Sorry. No strength in the movie. We dont want to offend those who dont have any strength in real life.''

''Oh, for Pete's sake.......''

''I think a villain by the name of Pete should be fine........''

''I wasnt suggesting the villain's name be P-''

''........But I'll have to check the demographics.''
 
Orko has always had layers. In Trolla his magic works fine, but in this dimension it's the opposite. He's actiually a masterful sorceror. He needs to be less Jar Jar and more....not quite Gollum, but in that realm of where he has comedic moments but is not a goofball. Gollum acted goofy as **** but he was a force to be reckoned with at times.
SFX aside, I suppose Radagast would be a more apt tonal comparison.
 
I'm thee He-Man a hot hot real estate property of Development Hell.
 
[YT]/watch?v=yLxHqOu9AcI[/YT] I saw this trending on YouTube
 
Last edited:
[YT]yLxHqOu9AcI[/YT] I saw this trending on YouTube

Some blogs picked it up. That music does not go well with that trailer or footage. It seems anything that gets a Force Awakens style trailer is national news now.
 
It's still working for me

weird that it doesn't work for me. I even checked other You Tube links to see if it was a problem with my computer, and the other video links work fine.
 
Can't this film ever come off ground?


I'd rather never see another He-Man film again if it means it becomes some jokey disaster. I'm almost thinking this is as unfilmable a property as there is these days, for both production and market reasons.
 
weird that it doesn't work for me. I even checked other You Tube links to see if it was a problem with my computer, and the other video links work fine.

it's weird, I went to check it again on my desktop and your write there is a problem with it. But when I checked it from Ipad no problem super weird
 
Y'know, I feel like if I got the chance to pitch this production to a studio, 80% of my pitch would be subtly trying to talk the studio execs out of doing it, like literally listing all the reasons it could go magnificently wrong.
 
It's weird, like I want to see this happen. But on the other hand, I don't want to see it go marvelously bad.
 
Y'know, I feel like if I got the chance to pitch this production to a studio, 80% of my pitch would be subtly trying to talk the studio execs out of doing it, like literally listing all the reasons it could go magnificently wrong.

Somehow, I suspect the subject of Sam Worthington will come up.
 
Hey, if our goal was to get a director with an even stupider name than many Masters of the Universe characters, mission accomplished.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top
monitoring_string = "afb8e5d7348ab9e99f73cba908f10802"