Fantasy Masters of the Universe - Part 3

[cronosred]

A new live action He-Man movie in theaters and a new She-Ra cartoon on Netflix, hopefully both turn out good.

 

[Dark Raven]

To film in Spring of 2018? They don't seem to have a cast at all yet though. Spring is only a couple of months away.

 

[AverageMan]

To film in Spring of 2018? They don't seem to have a cast at all yet though. Spring is only a couple of months away.

I was about to ask if this is actually happening? Or is it just another 'scoop' that actually turns out to be nothing?
Will be interesting to see if it gets off the ground & what route they'll take, but skeptical as to whether or not it goes ahead.

 

[Deck Rickard]

I like Goyer more than most... as a writer. I still wonder if BvS wouldn't have turned out to be the pretentious trainwreck it was if they had gone with his original script. Does anyone know if it's floating around out there on the internet somewhere? I'd be interested to know what was in it before Chris Terrio showed up with all of his "Devils come from the sky! The bell has been rung!" nonsense.

That said, he's an AWFUL director. Blade Trinity was horrible. The Unborn was garbage (he even managed to make Gary Oldman suck!). I never saw The Invisible, but it looked stupid to me and I can't stand Justin Chatwin. But maybe he's learned some things since those failures? I hope so, at least.

If he casts Sam Heughan as He-Man, I'm all in.

 

[Aximili86]

Wow, there was a complete BvS draft by Goyer before Terrio even came aboard? That's pretty cool, I guess I always just assumed they were both collaborating on it from the start.

Yeah, I'd be pretty damn curious to read that if it's out there.

 

[Deck Rickard]

I don't know if it was a complete draft. All I know is that sometime WAY before Terrior came on board, Amy Adams said in an interview that she had read the script. At the time, Goyer was the only writer on board. Maybe she only read a treatment, but she indicated that it was a full script and said it was so secret she had to read in a room with security.

 

[TheVileOne]

If they really want to start shooting in spring, like April, they will have to start casting pretty soon. Like ASAP. Especially if they want to keep the 2019 release date.

Tough role and tough franchise. Not sure how they are going to update it for today's audiences so everyone doesn't complain about it. White male hero. Toxic masculinity. All that stuff.

I love Masters of the Universe and embrace Masters of the Universe, but I'm not sure how you make it relevant or successful for today's audiences that it will become a huge movie franchise without it being called a Guardians of the Galaxy or Thor: Ragnarok ripoff.

Plus you have Tom Rothman in charge, and look at how his micro-managing hurt so many projects at Fox.

Regardless, if they make the movie, I will definitely check it out. I'm a life-long fan of He-Man and Masters of the Universe. I want to see how they will adapt it in live-action in this day and age and how they will approach Grayskull, Battlecat (hopefully), Skeletor, etc. The reason I am keen to see it is because nothing is really happening with the franchise right now. There's a new She-Ra animation getting made for Netflix, but She-Ra is almost like it's own thing. So at least this will be something. It could be the death knell for the franchise or its last gasp. But at least it will be an attempt to get MOTU from where it's been collecting dust for years.

Like maybe we can get some nice collectibles or even a new animated show out of it. Those are my main hopes.

 

[AverageMan]

The worst thing that can happen is they get a film made & it end's up like the recent Power Rangers film. Has the potential to launch a franchise, so hopefully it get's handled with care.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Yeah as long as Rothman doesn’t stick his nose into the production and start demanding stupid things like a 90-minute runtime to maximize profits from multiple screenings, this has the potential to be interesting. Guess we’ll see.

 

[terry78]

2 hours really are the bare minimum in order to flesh everything out. You can't Transformers this one where only like one or two characters get development.

 

[TheVileOne]

Except all the Transformers movies are like well over two and a half hours with virtually no character development, and the robots have almost no characters to speak of.

Ideally, here are the main groups of characters you need to develop, if we are sticking with the classic definitive characters:

Heroes:

He-Man/Adam
Teela
Duncan/Man at Arms
Randor and Queen Marlena
Battlecat and Orko as your buddies/sidekicks/comic relief
Sorceress

Villains:

Skeletor
Evil-Lyn
Beastman (Skeletor's creature breeder, beast master)
Tri-Klops (Skeletor's gadget, tech guy)
Hordak (Skeletor's mentor/benefactor of power)
A few other evil warrior Mooks for some color to the baddies. Like 2-3 more. Pick from the likes of Mer-Man, Trap-Jaw, etc.

You can do some big picture world building stuff with King Grayskull, Hordak and the Horde, King Hiss and the Snake Men.

I would like a prologue ideally to start the same way as the 2002 animated series. Randor and the Masters protecting Grayskull from Keldor and the Evil Warriors. Keldor gets the acid on his face, and Randor is named new King of Eternia by the Council of Elders. Forming the light and dark hemispheres, etc.

IMHO, it's just an easy way to get started with the story, put Adam on his hero's journey and just reintroduce audiences to this world. Adam can go to Castle Grayskull to learn about his destiny. Just say he is powerful because of his own naturally powerful family bloodline and that gives him the ability to channel the collected power of the other Sword of Power wielders: He-Ro, King Grayskull, Wun-Dar, Vi-Kor, Oo-Lar. Just reference and acknowledge them to streamline this.

My idea is that Adam can't just get all of his power just from the sword. It has to come from within himself as well. That way, while the sword is powerful, it's not something that anyone can use. That way Adam has to struggle and adjust to using it.

And then over the course of the films, we will get flashbacks showing Keldor's corruption and making a deal with Hordak. Grab the scene from the animated series, where Keldor makes a deal with Hordak and gives him the Skeletor head. Skeletor thinks and tries to be pragmatic, but the skull head sort of drives him batty. The Justin Marks script was bad because it basically made Skeletor a joke. He was sick and ailing and barely holding himself together. It didn't take much for Adam to defeat him.

On the villain side, I'd like for them to push the romance between Skeletor and Evil-Lynn. It doesn't have to be a major thing. It can sort of be a Mystique/Magneto thing. But Skeletor's insanity might push her to question what side to take. Again, the animated series did a great job of fleshing out Evil-Lyn's backstory, her relationship with Keldor and also her own father.

On the hero side, your main trio is Man at Arms, He-Man/Adam, and Teela. You can have other heroes, but that's the main group and relationship dynamic. I'd really like it if Orko was in there. Just tone him down a bit from the cartoon. Make it dramatic in that he has trouble controlling his powers since he lost his wand, but he can come through when it counts. I think use Cringer/Battlecat, but he can't talk.

But then again, I'm not David Goyer.

 

[TheVileOne]

The worst thing that can happen is they get a film made & it end's up like the recent Power Rangers film. Has the potential to launch a franchise, so hopefully it get's handled with care.

That's far from the worst thing that can happen. However, my feeling is, as bad or whatever worst it could be, the franchise is practically dead at this point anyway. So it's at a point where I'd almost rather see something, anything to come out of it, than nothing.

I mean you want to talk about worst? It could be another 20th Century Fox Fantastic Four situation. I mean look who is in charge at Sony.

I personally think they won't be able to launch a franchise out of it, but if we can at least get one movie, some new toys and other companion material, I might be good with just that at least.

I mean, look at Dredd 3D. We got a fairly good movie, good performance by Karl Urban as Dredd. Violent, dark, gritty. Dredd never takes off his helmet. But it was a fairly self contained story. I wanted it to start a franchise, but the movie bombed and no one saw it in theaters. It did find a cult audience, and now we are getting a Mega City One TV show in the near future. I mean if something like that were to happen here, I'd be fine with that as well.

 

[Agent Orange]

Am I a bad person for absolutely adoring Frank Langella's performance in the original film? He's a malevolent force of nature and delivered a performance far greater than the film deserved. (Even if he did devour every ounce of the scenery in the process.)

 

[TheVileOne]

Am I a bad person for absolutely adoring Frank Langella's performance in the original film? He's a malevolent force of nature and delivered a performance far greater than the film deserved. (Even if he did devour every ounce of the scenery in the process.)

No, he's really good in it. I genuinely, unashemedly enjoy his performance in the film.

 

[The Guard]

He's not a great director. But I don't know that this project needs a great director. It needs someone with passion for the source material, which Goyer has. He was involved way back when, and his writing protégé Justin Marks wrote one of the first drafts for this thing...which felt very "Goyer" in places (And was largely awful, keep HIM away from this).

If this is what it takes to actually get this thing off the ground...it is what it is. I don't think we were ever likely to get an Oscar winning MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE film. I'd settle for something fun with decent dramatic stakes that leads to a franchise. Because that's something this has...major franchise potential, including spinoffs (SHE RA, anyone?).

 

[terry78]

Hell I'd be fine with Jake kasdan coming off jumanji if they were still looking.

 

[terry78]

Goyer is out.

http://variety.com/2018/film/news/masters-of-the-universe-he-man-david-goyer-wont-direct-1202692790/

 

[rogue trooper]

..might be for the best. Let's just hope the next one is a much more inspired choice and stays.

 

[TheVileOne]

Just don't go back to McG or Joseph Chu.

 

[Dark Raven]

Goyer is out.

http://variety.com/2018/film/news/masters-of-the-universe-he-man-david-goyer-wont-direct-1202692790/

Well of course he is. That's not surprising. Goyer seems like one of these people who's always attached to some film but never ends up staying. I knew this would happen.

 

[Rorschach2012]

Taika should do it

 

[TheVileOne]

It'd probably be fun at least, but I highly doubt he does Masters of the Universe right after Ragnarok.

 

[Aximili86]

Just get some competent action/sci-fi/fantasy director (doesn't have to be particularly high profile, just some workhorse type who knows what he's doing) who grew up in the 80s and "gets" the material.

Doesn't really matter who. We're not getting some A-lister directing this thing anyway.

 

[AverageMan]

Can't remember who said it, but I saw some tweet saying "If Goyer has passed, it must be bad"...

WTF?! lol. Probably has chance of being half decent now. A new director will more than likely re-draft the script/story anyway, right?

 

[Aximili86]

Goyer co-wrote Dark City, and was a big part in crafting Nolan's Bat movies.

Dude's talented with story stuff when on the right project. Not much chops as a director, but if he was scripting it and it ended up in another directors' hands it'd have a chance of being at least pretty decent.