We need to establish a thing or two: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was really, really dumb. The cartoon was shitty and stupid, the toys were poorly made. I have to give the toy line points for straight up weirdness (Stinkor? Snout Spout? Buzz-Off), but it's squarely aimed at 9 year olds. There's no deeper meaning or mythology or metaphor at play here. I guess you could argue there's a subversive homoeroticism in the bulbous physiques of the toys.
But I don't think Jon Chu is making the gay pin-up version of Masters of the Universe. The director, whose GI Joe: Retaliation was recalled by Paramount at the last moment, supposedly to be 3Ded, has Masters as his next project, and he talked to CelebBuzz about it a bit.
I was approached about doing a Masters of the Universe movie and while at first I was skeptical, I read the script and I was blown away. I had no idea what to expect but it was such a fresh, UNEXPECTED approach I was immediately intrigued. I never expected to connect on a human level to a MOTU movie but I really plugged in emotionally. That alone, got me excited to see what we could do with the property.
MOTU is such a challenging puzzle to make into a movie that works to a contemporary audience but the script seemed to really crack it for me. I think people are really going to be surprised at the rich story we have the opportunity to tell in this world. Where you think MOTU goes left, the script goes right and it was just very clear to me this was something very special.
This is a perfect example of a movie whose existence I don't understand. The target audience for this film is... who? 40 year olds? That's who grew up with the toys and cartoon. Maybe the argument is that these men will bring their children to see the movie and create a new generation of fans. It seems hugely unlikely to me. But hey, maybe this will be really good. We all thought Pirates of the Caribbean would be a bomb, and it took until the third movie for it to get truly insufferably bad.
That said I honestly cannot understand how there will be a live action movie in the 21st century whose lead is named He-Man.
About the Author: A ten year veteran of writing for the web, Devin has built a reputation as a loud, uncompromising and honest voice – sometimes to the chagrin of his readers, but usually to their delight.
