After many, many, many false starts, script revisions and general development hell, Warner Bros. finally gave up on bringing the Mattel toy He-Man to the big screen.
The film, now at Columbia, working under the title “Masters Of The Universe,” will get a fresh script by “Predators” scribes Mike Finch and Alex Litvak. Apparently the duo, “attempted to balance a treatment that would convince the studio it was cinematic and keep the toy company satisfied that its characters were being portrayed appropriately.” Gee, that doesn’t sound like Mattel is all too particular about their property. Must be nice to have a fastidious toy company to answer to. We can only imagine how surreal that meeting was (Mattel has story approval which must be fun).
Finch and Litvak’s spec script “Medieval” sold for a pretty penny last year, making the writing duo a hot property which paved the way for the scribes to rewrite the Robert Rodriguez “Predators” script that was finished some fifteen-odd years ago.
No word yet on any directors for the project. “Kung Fu Panda” co-director John Stevenson was the last person to be attached to the director’s chair, but we’re guessing he’s moved on to other things. No word yet on a lead, but Dolph Lundgren will always be He-Man for us.