One of the most popular cartoons of the 1980s was “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.” The series spawned a very successful line of toys. There was also a theatrical movie starring Dolph Lundgren as He-Man and Frank Langella and Skeletor. Sony has been trying to revive the franchise for the past decade. However, there have been many problems with the production. The financing has been hard to get in place. There have also been numerous versions of the script which Sony executives have not been thrilled with. It would seem that the project is finally starting to pick up some steam after spending many years in development hell.A new report suggests that the “Masters of the Universe” film will go straight to Netflix. Sony is not sure if they want to produce the movie. They currently own the rights. However according to Cinema Blend , there are rumors that Sony feels that the movie might do poorly at the box office. Therefore, they might decide to sell the rights to Netflix. The streaming giant would be an appropriate home for “Masters of the Universe.” This is because Netflix already has an animated series called “She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.” The company has also reached an agreement with Kevin Smith to produce a new animated series featuring He-Man.
Sony has set a theatrical release of March 2021. That will obviously not happen if Netflix buys the rights to the film. There is next to no new info about the film at this point. There has not been any casting news. We still do not know which actors are going to play the leads. There is also no word on when filming will begin. It is not likely that these decisions will be made until Sony decides what they are going to do with the rights to “Masters of the Universe.”
Sony has not had many winning movies lately. It is true that “Spider-Man: Far From Home” was a global box office smash. However, the same cannot be said for “Men in Black: International.” It was a huge bomb that resulted in Sony losing millions of dollars. This means that Sony might be very nervous about pouring a lot of money into a “Masters of the Universe” movie that might result in another bomb. Sony might try to find a partner to share the financing of the film. It remains to be seen what they will do.
