Progress is finally happening on Paramount Pictures’ long-gestating ‘M.A.S.K.’ movie as F. Gary Gray (‘The Fate of the Furious,”Straight Outta Compton’) has been tapped to direct the film! Not only that, but we’ve learned that the studio is officially looking to create an ongoing franchise based on the property. That last bit of news shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone as the studio has long shown interest in developing more Hasbro toy lines into ongoing films, potentially with crossover capabilities between the likes of G.I. Joe, M.A.S.K., Visionaries, Micronauts, and ROM, perhaps with the Transformers as well.
M.A.S.K. was initially created by Kenner in 1985 and launched with an animated series and toy line. The full name of this group of heroes is Mobile Armored Strike Kommand, and they went up against V.E.N.O.M., the Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem. It was clearly inspired by G.I. Joe but quickly went into its own direction.
The idea for the film isn’t just to capture these two sets of enemies, though. The studio “will move quickly to set a writer to hatch a contemporary subculture movie with a youth empowerment angle.”
It is unclear if Paramount is still looking to have this set of films take place in the same world as the ‘Transformers’ films or ‘G.I. Joe’ as they had initially planned on doing. The idea of a cinematic universe would obviously be a tempting one for the studio, but with high production times and costs combined with an unclear vision for the two pre-existing franchises, it seems less likely to happen.
Are you excited that ‘M.A.S.K.’ is going to be coming to the big screen in a live-action adaptation? Do you feel that this series would work better as a standalone franchise or would you like to see the various Hasbro movies find a way to exist in the same cinematic universe and crossover between films? Share your thoughts below!
Source: Collider
