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As a child growing up in the ‘80s, Travis Knight felt different from the kids around him. Sensitive and thoughtful, he often wondered where he fit in. That is until he discovered He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Well, really Prince Adam, the childlike alter-ego of the iconic techno barbarian hero.
Adam’s emotional, vulnerable, and curious approach to heroics spoke to Knight and set him on the path to Cinema Con 2026 in Las Vegas, where he recently shared 25 minutes of the film with a select group of journalists, explaining his deep personal connection to the beloved ‘80s kids cartoon and toy line.
“It was a huge part of my childhood. I distinctly remember when I was first exposed to it, and it was so different, so that was kind of my big introduction to sci-fi, sci-fi, and fantasy.” Knight shared.
The director experienced the all-encompassing type of love that only kids can really appreciate. “It was kind of weird and psychedelic and strange, and kind of playful. There was an aspect to it that just felt like it shouldn’t exist. Someone took a bunch of ideas, and then spewed it out, and I was delighted by it, so I had the toys, the little mini comics. When the cartoon came out the next year, I loved the cartoon.”
Indeed, the filmmaker can still recall vividly rushing home after school to watch the He-Man and She-Ra Power Hour, as well as the greatest Christmas gift he ever received: the Castle Grayskull play set.
Knight also had some pretty profound thoughts about why we return to these toyetic nostalgic properties again and again. “A funny thing about toys, a child’s play thing is people mock that stuff. Oh, it’s plastic, and it is, but I see with my own kids, I certainly saw it as a kid, which is that toys are essentially vessels for our ideas and our magic. We put a lot of ourselves into it. They become extensions of us in some way and we become extensions of them.”
It’s not just Knight who has a lifelong connection to He-Men though. Executive producer Jason Blumenthal has been trying to get a live-action Masters of the Universe project off the ground for two whole decades. It’s been an epic quest in its own right, with multiple challenges, scripts and He-Man castings (what might have been, eh Noah Centineo?). At the heart of it, however, remained a belief that if they captured the magic of Masters of the Universe, the audience will show up. Now that belief can finally be tested when Masters of the Universe opens this week.
For Blumenthal, who spoke to Den of Geek on the Masters of the Universe set in England’s relatively new Sky Studios Elstree, it’s all about capturing the imagination and attention of fans of all ages, no matter their knowledge base or how they entered the fandom.
“I have to care about every one of them,” the exec producer explains. “But who I care about most is [the person] that’s never seen the toy or that’s ever played with them. If they come to the movie and like it, then I know everyone else will.”
That mentality brings Masters of the Universe a cast of Hollywood icons and upstarts of all ages. There is The Wire and Pacific Rim’s Idris Elba as Man-At-Arms; original He-Man Dolph Lundgren in a super cute cameo; Rome’s James Purefoy as the strict and powerful King Randor; Community’s Alison Brie as the nefarious Evil-Lyn; Firefly’s Morena Baccarin as the enigmatic Sorceress; Riverdale’s Camilla Mendes as heroine Teela; and of course Red White & Royal Blue and Bottoms breakout, Nicholas Galitzine, as He-Man.
It’s a cast of stars who understand the tight acting balance between sincere and winking. And for Galitzine, it all started with getting one scene perfect. You know the one–-kids around the world have been reenacting it as they hold their swords aloft towards their bedroom ceilings for decades to cry: “By the Power of Greyskull. I have the power!””
“Oh shit, that’s the big scene.” Galitzine laughs as he recalls his feelings about taking on the iconic moment. “I was very conflicted in my mind as to whether I wanted to rehearse it or really just feel it on the day, which was actually something that I landed on because, as Travis says, it was emotional for him. It was emotional for me,” he explained.
“This is someone who’s been put down their entire life and been told by his teachers when he arrived on Earth that he’s crazy, and this moment, this incantation, is just completely empowering him and vindicating his life of struggles. And I didn’t want to have something so prepared in my mind. I wanted it to feel really from my core and my gut.”
And it works. When we watched the transformation sequence at the world premiere, it had this writer and other film critics tearing up and cheering. It feels earned, awesome, and unique. A large part of that comes from both Galitzine’s performance and also the practical nature of the sets, the production, and the incredible Sword of Power itself.
Costume designer Richard Sale explained how you can feel both the old and the new coming through the redesigns of the beloved costumes worn by characters.
“Our major goal was to try and be true to the original while moving things on a little bit,’ he shared. “That was our starting point. And it’s been fun to not just pay homage to it, but to fill it with detail as well. So looking at those original kinds of Filmation cartoons and the toys, they’re all quite flat. So obviously we have the ability to give things a history and a depth, and a richness of detail, which makes these things a little bit more interesting.”
We got to experience that on set, with real set-worn costumes that were functional, had pockets and pouches galore, and in the case of some very famous characters were also a lot less furry…
“We went through lots of iterations [for Adam]. Is he wearing trousers? Is he wearing armor on top? We did tease Nick at one point, saying that he was going to be wearing the really tight furry pants.”
It’s not just the heroes that they knew they had to get right though, as one of things that made the famously toy-selling kids show so popular was its roster of hilarious, campy, and often super weird villains—all of whom are brought to life in shockingly accurate and practical fashion.
“It all goes down to the critical story that we’re trying to tell and then how you tell it, and it is a balance of those things,” Knight shares. “It’s cheekiness, it’s a reference, it’s fun, it’s playful. That, to me, is part of the DNA of Masters of the Universe. It was always that. It was never super serious, and yet we take it very seriously, we do love these characters, we want to have fun with it, but we are telling an emotional story that does have stakes. So it’s trying to find a way to balance those things.”
“These characters are very over the top; they look ridiculous; they do ridiculous things; they have ridiculous names. So a lot of it was trying to find reasons for those things, which you’ll see when you watch the movie,” Knight explains.
“[We’re just] trying to honor those characters in a way that felt like the Masters of the Universe that we loved as kids, but that also made sense in this world, so we made adjustments along the way. Still, Triclops feels like Triclops,Trap Jaw feels like Trap Jaw, Skeletor feels like Skeletor. It’s our own version of it within this kind of modernized cinematic take on the material.”
The filmmakers’ attention to detail expands even into the structure of the story. Knight teases that the impetus for the plot mirrors the rhythm of a typical He-Man episode.
“If you watch the Filmation cartoon, you know that every episode, Skeletor had some grand designs for power. He was going to do some kind of scheme. He’s going to get his ass kicked, and then he’s going to promise to return next week. Lather, rinse, repeat, the same thing every time. And we wondered what would happen if he actually won. And that’s essentially how we start our movie,” Knight explained at CinemaCon.
The director also has words of reassurance to fans concerned by trailers seeming to depict as much time on Earth as Eternia.
Says Knight, “Very little time is actually spent on Earth. It’s an important grounding mechanism for us, and there’s a reason why we did it, which you’ll see when you watch the movie. There’s a lot of virtue that comes out of being able to act, because that is part of his ancestry, and it allowed us to do certain things that pay off down the road, but in terms of like percentages? [Maybe] 15 percent of the movie takes place on Earth.”
That belief in the inherent weirdness and magic of Eternia sings throughout the big swing blockbuster, making it one of the most adventurous rides of the summer.
Masters of the Universe opens Friday, June 4.
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