Now that G.I. Joe: Retaliation has arrived in cinemas [read our ★★★ review here], director Jon M. Chu can give his full attention to another classic 80s toy line that he’s set to adapt for the screen in the long-in-development Masters of the Universe. Speaking to IGN (via ComicBookMovie), Chu has provided a brief update on the status of the live-action reboot, which has been scripted by the Predators pairing of Alex Litvak and Mike Finch, with rewrites from Richard Wenk (The Expendables 2).
“We’re still early but we’re deep in experimenting. This is the most fun phase for me because we get to try everything we’ve ever wanted to try in [Masters of the Universe] and then we get to throw out all the things that don’t work, which is most of it. [This allows us to know] what our tone is, where we’re going to head with it and it’s a very important phase because it shows [us] the direction we’re going to go in the future. So we’re very early, we don’t know a lot yet other than that we’re playing around and having a lot of fun.”
Meanwhile, speaking to Topless Robot, Chu provided an indication of the tone he’s going for with the reboot: “We’re going for slightly more serious, and I wouldn’t say “serious” as a dark tone you don’t necessarily want He-Man to be in, but it’s not campy. We’re not going campy. It’s sort of an origin story of how He-Man came to be, and to me that gives you a lot of opportunity to create real culture in this world. What is Eternia really like, what are the cultures, what are the languages they’re speaking, what are Snake Men, what are Beast Men, what are all these things, and how do they exist in this world? So we’re taking a real look at creating life on this planet, on this world, that hopefully will translate. And again, we’re in a very early designing phase of it, the script is great, but we’re still very early at figuring out exactly how theatrical we go, and how real we go, and how dark we can take it.”
Rumours of a Masters of the Universe reboot have been circulating for the best part of the past decade now, with the project having passed through the hands of director John Woo (Hard Boiled) and producer Joel Silver (The Matrix). Chu signed on to the project last summer and subsequently brought in Wenk to rewrite Litvak and Finch’s original script (entitled Grayskull), while just last week the director indicated that he’d be open to a cameo from Dolph Lundgren, who played He-Man in 1987’s first live-action effort.
Originally published March 28, 2013. Updated December 13, 2019.
