Rumor: Sony Halts “Masters of the Universe” Production

Take this with a grain of Eternia salt, but according to a single source claiming insider knowledge of the situation- Sony has shut down production on their live-action “Masters of the Universe” film.

Heroic Hollywood says that development on the picture has shut down, “temporarily”.

The site says:

“The shutdown is only temporary as the studio has too much invested in the project. Another source tells us that the mythical kingdom of Eternia is prohibitively expensive to create in live-action.”

Last we heard, The Nee Brothers were set to direct from a script written by Art Marcum and Matt Holloway (“Iron Man”). Noah Centineo was set to star as Prince Adam/He-Man.

If you’ll recall, this film has had a rocky road on the path to Castle Greyskull. Just recently, art department alum on Blade Runner: 2049, Guillermo del Toro‘s Hellboy, and Prometheus Carlos Huante spoke with HN Entertainment about why he thinks Sony “screwed up” by not moving forward with David S. Goyer’s version of a “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” film. It’s a lengthy comment, but, well worth a read if you’re interested in the situation and property:

“Like I said, that [original He-Man cartoon] was my first professional job. I was a runner there. My life drawing instructor worked there at Filmation. I visited him there for lunch and left there with a job as a runner…I did get into the industry that way and discovered what was available for me to work in, so He-Man is kind of my foundation. Well, it was my pathway into this industry.

When they called me to work on the film I was very happy. It was kind of like the call I got from Ridley [Scott], to work on Prometheus in that it was a revisit to my childhood and my beginnings so to speak. So with He-Man, now because it has this history with me I was very excited. I know these characters really well and I was ready to work..and I did. I worked on it for several weeks and the script that Goyer had, he was directing and he wrote the script, was great I actually thought it was really good, which I don’t say that often. This one was fun and it made the world more fantastic than I thought it could go. It felt arty and fantastical at the same time. 

The director’s script was big and the studio didn’t want to fund that movie and so the director quit…He was great [Goyer] I loved where he was going with that story it was great fun, but once that went away we got let go too.
I’m not going to talk too much about it [in great detail], I know they’re making it still but I’ll tell you it was… just the story of Greyskull and that sort of thing and there was some really cool stuff in there. I don’t think they’re gonna make that version. I know they’re not going to, it was like a Lord of The Rings film, it was huge! And there was all kinds of stuff in there, you could have divided up that script into three movies and it would have worked. That’s how big it was. I would have loved to have spent a lot of time on that one. It was a more fantastic version of Lord of The Rings, is what I’ll say. It’s a more colorful and fantastical version of Lord of The Rings, but it felt as real as Lord of The Rings. It was very real but very far-out. It was a final return to science fiction fantasy where we’ve only had one, Star Wars.

When they called me to work on the film I was very happy. It was kind of like the call I got from Ridley [Scott], to work on Prometheus in that it was a revisit to my childhood and my beginnings so to speak. So with He-Man, now because it has this history with me I was very excited. I know these characters really well and I was ready to work..and I did. I worked on it for several weeks and the script that Goyer had, he was directing and he wrote the script, was great I actually thought it was really good, which I don’t say that often. This one was fun and it made the world more fantastic than I thought it could go. It felt arty and fantastical at the same time. 

They screwed-up by not allowing Goyer to make it in my opinion. it was a slam-dunk money maker.”

We’ll let you know if this news is confirmed, and any additional information we find out about the film.