Imagine how impossible it is to make a movie about Masters of the Universe. You’ve got decades of toys, comics, and TV shows at your disposal, then you have to distill it all down and make a movie about a super buff dude with a sword who fights a living skeleton, along with a bunch of other wacky-ass characters. Then, if the movie is going to be successful, it also has to be something not only a fan of the franchise could watch, but their kids, parents, and grandparents, too.
History has shown us that, with most franchises, it’s not an easy task. And yet, if there’s one person who seems like they can bring all that together, it’s director Travis Knight. As the CEO of the stop-motion animation studio Laika, he helped create incredible films that blend childlike wonder and adult-focused emotions. He then made the jump to live action with Bumblebee, a criminally underrated Transformers spinoff that captured the magic of that franchise in a way Michael Bay never could. It was like watching the classic cartoons on the big screen, but with big-budget Hollywood magic.
Now, Knight is attempting that again with a live-action Masters of the Universe film. And, speaking with Knight last month in Las Vegas, you just got the sense that he, above all others, has the power when it comes to this franchise. Or so we hope.
“I was a fan long before I was a filmmaker,” Knight told the press about Masters of the Universe. “And so for those things I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of that I had that kind of emotional connection with when I was younger, it was crucial for me to try to tap into what made those things special to begin with, why I fell in love with those things in the first place, and to make sure that that stuff is honored and how we’re bringing that stuff to the screen.”
“I think we’ve all seen a number of these properties that are made by people who we think maybe don’t necessarily understand them, appreciate them, love them,” Knight continued. “And to me, I think the most important thing for any filmmaker… is that they have to love it. They really sincerely have to believe in it and love it and put everything they have into it. And I’ve said this many, many times, but I sincerely love He-Man. That’s generally not something you shout from the rooftops, but I do. And so when this thing came my way, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it… this has been a dream come true for me to be able to breathe life into these characters.”
Before he officially signed on to do the film, Knight had a very clear vision of how he wanted to bring He-Man, Skeletor, Castle Grayskull, Eternia, and more to the big screen.
“I knew what this movie needed to be, and tone was probably the most critical thing to get right,” he said. “In my experience, Masters of the Universe is something that’s fun. It’s playful. There is a degree of camp. There are aspects of it that are utterly ridiculous and silly. And yet I loved it when I was a kid, and I still love it. And so we took the world seriously, even though some aspects of it are patently ridiculous. It was important to have a foot in each world so that we are telling a story that means something.”
The story he and screenwriters Chris Butler, Aaron Nee, Adam Nee, and David Callaham landed on will tell the origins of He-Man (Nicholas Galitzine), a prince named Adam who is separated from his family and, years later, returns home to save it and reclaim his throne. “As he journeys from the Adam that we knew from the cartoon to become He-Man, what is that like?” Knight explained. “What is that process like? What drove him in certain areas of his life? How did he arrive there? There is a duality to Adam and He-Man. Adam essentially represents empathy, He-Man represents strength, and the movie is about trying to find ways to reconcile those things.”
Knight also tried to find ways to get all of his favorite characters into the film, though he was not successful. “Film is a time-based art,” he said. “You only have so much time to tell the story that you want to tell. And it does have to be focused. I believe in the adage of ‘The trimmer the vessel, the more it can carry.’ You want to have a really focused point of view on the story that you’re trying to tell… and then everything is built around that. And so, because this really was Adam’s story, it meant that all the other things had to be in service of his story. You find nuance, you find depth, you find complexity in all those other characters. But it’s obvious, the more people, the more characters you stack in there, the less you can do with them. And so at some point I felt like it was just I was just being a ridiculously irresponsible fan boy as a filmmaker.”
“But the thing about this universe and these characters is that it’s so rich, it’s dense, it’s got over 40 years of history and mythology, and so we really just scratch the surface of the kind of things you could do in this world,” Knight continued. “And it was incredibly fun. I’m lucky. I feel very fortunate that I was able to get some of my favorites in there. Ram Man, Fisto, and Mekaneck. I really wanted to get Mer-Man in there. I couldn’t make it work. But if you look in the background, my prosthetics guy did me a solid. There’s a dude who looks exactly like Mer-Man wandering around in the crowd. So there are a few of those things in there just because we weren’t able to properly get them in the movie. But for the keen-eyed fan, they’ll see some cool stuff.”
But will that cool stuff continue beyond this film? Fans of the franchise will notice almost immediately that Adam’s sister Adora, who becomes She-Ra, exists in this world, for example. But Knight knows to be realistic about expectations.
“Look, I always approach these things as if you only get one shot at it,” he said. “And so, if that’s the case, we make this movie, and there are no more stories to follow, we put everything we had into it, and I’m incredibly proud of the film. I think it’s fun. I think it’s exciting. I think it has an incredible heart. I think it tells an emotional story. And I’m just really proud of the crew who did exceptional work, the actors who brought everything they had in the movie. I’m just really proud of the work that everybody put into it and what we got out of the other side.”
“In terms of where we could go from here, of course, you are always imagining,” Knight continued. “There are things that I wanted to put in this movie that we weren’t able to do. Things I’d like to explore, and deeper aspects of some of these characters I’d like to explore. I think about what’s next for Adam. Where does the next stage of his life take him? Now he’s properly He-Man, what does that mean? And the essence of it is relationships. It’s all about relationships for me. So, how do those relationships evolve moving forward? Ultimately, this stuff is not in our hands. As much as we would like to tell more of these stories, if the world doesn’t want them, we won’t tell them. But if the world demands more of them, we’d be very lucky to be able to tell more stories in this universe.”
Masters of the Universe opens in theaters on June 5.
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