Your childhood dreams are one step closer to being slapped around and humiliated for a second time as Masters of the Universe claws its way back out of development hell. The film, which was previous titled Greyskull and had G.I. Joe: Retaliation director Jon M. Chu attached to it, has been unceremoniously resurrected after a period of everyone just quietly hoping it had gone away and would never come back.
The title has changed, though, and Chu is no longer pacing nervously around the director’s chair. This time the name on everyone’s lips is Terry Rossio, who co-wrote this past summer’s most spectacular flop, Lone Ranger, and is now ready to put his skills to work writing an answer to the question “How could they possibly make a He-Man movie better than the 1987 smash hit starring Dolph Lundren?”
Yes, Masters of the Universe has made its way to the big screen once before, as has most likely been discussed at length on I Love the ’80s. It was, oh let’s say, not good, and even though Masters of the Universe’s brand name recognition is now highest among full-grown adults who have no business watching a movie that can accurately be described as “based on a line of toys from Mattel,” nefarious supervillains like the dastardly Michael Bay have proved that if it’s loud and LeBeoufy enough, it’s going to make a lot of money.
The fact that the new Masters of the Universe is likely not going to have Frank Langella as He-Man’s arch nemesis Skeletor should be enough to send it to its resting place in the land of Eternia, but alas, these are dark times we’re living in.
No release date has been set for the new take on the franchise, but with Rossio at work rewriting a rewrite of the “original” draft, the odds are getting better that it will be sometime before the heat death of the universe.