Rewind to the 1980s (come on, you know you want to). You’re Dolph Lundgren, an actor with an impressive physique but limited talent, and have just starred as Ivan Drago in Rocky IV. How do you follow up the best role of your career? By starring in the live action adaptation of the children’s television series, Masters of the Universe, better known as He-Man. Seems like a no-brainer, right? But you forgot something… this is the 1980s, meaning we take a popular property and strip it of everything that made it popular in the first place. So the 1987 version of Masters of the Universe is, by all accounts, a waste of time.
But it’s times like this that I’m actually glad that it is now the era of the remake: buried in this story on The Hollywood Reporter is the tidbit of news that production company Escape Artists, which has renewed its first-look deal with Sony Pictures (hence the news story), is developing a Masters of the Universe movie. For those of you too young to remember, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was a kiddie-Conan, a Mattel action figure line and cartoon series involving the noble hero He-Man battling the forces of the evil Skeletor to save the land of Eternia.
Escape Artists, which is run by producers Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal and Steve Tisch, are better known for drama films (Seven Pounds, The Pursuit of Happyness, The Weather Man) and romantic comedies (The Back-Up Plan, Alex & Emma), the company is clearly trying to diversify its output with the upcoming Steve Carrell comedy Great Hope Springs and projects like Masters of the Universe. In fact, the story reports that Escape Artists have a number of interesting films in development:
Other Escape Artists project in development with Sony/Columbia include Sex Tape, with Nicholas Stoller attached to direct and Jason Segel attached to star; The Equalizer, the 1980s TV shot being remade as Denzel Washington vehicle and being produced with Alex Siskind; … and How To Disappear Completely, written by Ed Solomon and based on the Swedish film Vitus.”
All of which sound a lot more interesting than another Will Smith or Nicholas Cage drama, right?
Considering how badly Conan the Barbarian tanked at the box office this summer (though it was a good movie, damn it!) I’m surprised anyone is considering making the similar He-Man into a new film (how similar are they? The owners of Conan sued Mattel in 1982 for copyright infringement, though Mattel won the suit).
So it’s possible that we’ll see another crack at He-Man sometime this decade. I’m good with that!
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