I’m a child of the 1980’s - growing up in that decade was a treat. It was the last great time of innocence. There wasn’t an Internet, there wasn’t CGI, movies weren’t aimed at the lowest IQ, and television was great. Children’s television was really great and we weren’t too distracted by video games!
He-Man was one of the great cartoons. Legend has it that Mattel toys had planned to make a toy line based on the Conan The Barbarian movie, but when the film turned out to be violent and kid-unfriendly, they decided to scrap the idea, and instead they used the molds to create He-Man. I’m not sure how true this rumor is, but it’s a damn cool one.
Dolph Lundgren starred in a cheesy 1980’s Masters Of The Universe movie that had little or no relation to the epic cartoon or toy line.
A He-Man film has been in development for years… it is one of the properties that refuses to go away. And now according to Latino Review a script has been handed in to Warner Bros and Silver Pictures by screenwriter Justin Marks that is “‘Lord of the Rings’ meets ‘The Matrix’ and a little ‘Batman Begins’ thrown in for good measure.”
That could be hyperbole, but it could also be pitch for a really good sci-fi / fantasy epic.
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The script deals with the back story of Eternia (He-Man aka Prince Adam’s home planet). It shows us how Skeletor attained his legendary good looks, how Prince Adam becomes the muscle bound He-Man, and more importantly how The Power Sword was created.
There’s no mention of the infamous line “By the power of Grayskull!” but I’m pretty sure that it will be uttered at some point in the film.
The review of the 112 page script by El Mayimbe is passionate and from a fan’s perspective - and although I haven’t seen an episode of He-Man in almost twenty years (yes, I’m that old) it has me quite excited.
It sounds like this could give the new Conan movie a run for its money, and it will be interesting to see which makes it into production first.
File this movie under “One to watch.”
I’ll let you know if there are any developments, and in the meantime head over to Latino Review for the full, er, review. 
“I have the power!!”
Source: Latino Review
17 Comments
This is great news!!!…I was so disappointed , even as a kid, with the first He-Man movie. I hope they get this one right.
They did new He-Man cartoons not long ago, may be a few years back. They were pretty good, Skeletor was great, and Evil Lyn once more captured my heart.
A really good He-Man and Conan would cheer me up for some time.
I know. i never got a chance to watch any of those. Will have to buy them on DVD. I wonder if netflix has those? I actually still have all of the opriginal figures from the 80’s. Well nt all of them. But pretty close.
The first two seasons are out now with the third scheduled for August or sometime around there. It was very good. Really great animation and intelligent storyline. In fact, i wouldn’t be surprised if this script is in some way based off of the origin story in the newest cartoon. Which, BTW, I would be extremely happy with.
INK
I think last year around this time I heard that the Green Effect aka The Happening script was “Awesome”.
OH YEAH !!!!. GOOD WORK, BROWN, I KNEW YOU HAD THE INFO ON THIS UP AND COMING MOVIE. YEEEEE HAAAAAAW !!!! GO HE-MAN!!
i still have the original toys myself. as another child of the 80s, i must say it was a truely awesome decade. i’m sorry for all the adults who had to put up with the recession during those times, but i think it is safe to say that as kids, the only responsibility we had was doing grammar school homework, and watching cartoons.
by the way, the cartoons of the 80s we so informal that at the end of most of them there was always a lesson to be taught or public service announcement (PSA): G.I. Joe had “NOW WE KNOW. AND KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE,” the Mr. T cartoon had its PSA, He-Man, and others had there PSAs. point is: there was always a lesson to be learned, and the plot for most of the 80s cartoons had spunk (thundercats, He-Man, Transformers, Spiderman and his Amazing Friends, the Incredible Hulk, the Super Friends, etc). the story lines and fight scenes had meaning. there weren’t meaningless fightings in these cartoons just for the sake of fighting like today’s cartoon.
FYI, to anyone who still have their G.I. JOE, He-Man, and Transformer figures, sometime in the 90s they reported that these 80s toy figures were valuable. so hold onto to them. you could probably get a price quote from the internet itself. Google it.
They don’t want the movie to be campy so they cut out Orko. Orko!
I read this script review a few days ago, (yeah, you guys are a bit late) and if they do what I read, it’s going to be awesome. The whole Lord of the Rings meets The Matrix feel is sweet. When they re-made the toys and cartoon a few years back I thought it would make a great movie, hopefully they”l stick with this concept and keep it serious.
Mantis, I don’t think this is the first time you’ve pointed out that we’re “late.” I’d love to be more timely and we often are, but once in a while we just don’t get to a story same day.
Try running a site that keeps up with movie news, adds informed opinion, is well written - and then do it with a full time job, running the technical side of the site, having a wife, child and a couple of volunteers who also do this on the side.
Best regards,
Vic
I’ve jus finished watching the first DVD set of the 2002 series and can vouch for how good it is! It’s still a little “kiddy” by today’s standards but that’s all part of the charm. The characterisation and plot threads are a lot better too…
Just a shame they never got to series 3, when Hordak was due to appear as the main villain.
*Sigh*
As for the movie, the script definitely sounds intriguing… but I just hope they keep some of the colour and excitement of the series, rather than making it too dark just for the sake of reeling in the ‘300′ fans.
The part sci-fi, part fantasy element is something we don’t often see… so it definitely has an edge over the other LOTR wannabes.
Well, well, well aaaand WELL!!!
Now this could be quite the big fantasy adventure film. Ok, I’ve tried to watch the cartoons, but oh my lord… that’s just… not cool.
But I was the biggest He-Man fan as a kid. (strangely every cartoon I’ve been a fan of is now being made into a major motion picture film… must be my generation who writes this.)
So, Transformers was made (yeah I liked it cause I was a fan of it as a kid)
G.I. Joe is being made
He-Man has an awesome script
Superhero movies don’t count.
Still I’m happy that these movies are getting a fair treatment. You know, not a TV movie.
All I ask with He-Man is to please keep the cinematography in the same style as 300… then we’ve got at least a lot of eye candy to drool over.
Anyone seen this funny site? Yeah it’s in connection to the upcoming film from Del Toro
http://www.hetfet.org/
Kane: season 3 comes out August! You can go to Amazon.com to pre-order it. I’m a 80’s kid, IMHO, this script sounds FANTASTIC (with no cheese) and it will have a PG-13 minimum rating. The way the script sound, it looks like Justin Marks followed more along the new series. Just wish there were a way to contact the WB on green-lighting this script…
Vic and Volunteer family of SR: Thanks for your hard work! It’s not easy doing the following: finding good/entertaining info in the massive web, writing great articles, updating and maintaining SR, and commenting on ‘our’ opinions on your spare time.
I often visit lots of sites and your pace on reporting info is very competive to the best ones. Plus, your articles and community are almost always better than other respective sites. So keep up the good work!
Thank you for your kind words.
We do are best, but if if wasn’t for you guys, we wouldn’t be here
Niall
from the script review, it sounds more like Adam grows into He-man rather becoming He-Man through the power of Grayskull, or maybe I just glanced past it. If so, this has its good and bad points IMO.
The reviewer seems a little too excited and based on his comments the script didn’t sound all that ground-breaking or original. I don’t like the idea of Adam being a ‘leap first, think later’ kind of kid. I like the naive and innocent prince from the 2002 series (which was awesome BTW). I identify with that character more when I think to my childhood
Vic & co, about the post earlier regarding Screenrant, what I like about this site is that the news more reliable because you don’t jump at every rumor that appears on the net, and therefore doesn’t proliferate BS leads - although that sometimes causes delays in reporting, it’s a small price for accuracy and good ‘ol fashion chat. just my $.02
Adrian… the set coming out in August is just ‘part 3′ of 3 sets, rather than a ’season 3′ (which never got made).
For some reason, they split the two seasons over 3 sets.
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