While the live-action He-Man film ‘Masters Of The Universe’ is currently being crafted by the Nee Brothers based on a script by Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, it was originally being spearheaded by David S. Goyer. We had never learned why Goyer had left the project or what he had in mind for it, but thanks to former ILM artist Carlos Huante (‘Alien: Covenant,’ ‘Prometheus’) that has now changed. The creature designer has opened up on what the original plan had been for the film under Goyer’s guiding hand as well as what drove the director from the project.
Haunte was passionate about what was being brought to life and not only from Goyer’s vision but because working on the original He-Man cartoon series from Filmation was his first job in Hollywood. He was a runner for the series, and this was bringing things full circle for him. His passions stemmed from:
“Like I said, that [original He-Man cartoon] was my first professional job. I was a runner there. My life drawing instructor worked there at Filmation. I visited him there for lunch and left there with a job as a runner…I did get into the industry that way and discovered what was available for me to work in, so He-Man is kind of my foundation. Well, it was my pathway into this industry.
When they called me to work on the film, I was very happy. It was kind of like the call I got from Ridley, to work on Prometheus in that it was a revisit to my childhood and my beginnings so to speak. So with He-Man, now because it has this history with me I was very excited. I know these characters really well, and I was ready to work..and I did. I worked on it for several weeks and the script that Goyer had, he was directing, and he wrote the script, was great I actually thought it was really good, which I don’t say that often. This one was fun, and it made the world more fantastic than I thought it could go. It felt arty and fantastical at the same time.”
As to why Goyer left? What he wanted to do was too big for the studio, and it boiled down to the budget which was being requested to see this vision come to life:
“The director’s script was big and the studio didn’t want to fund that movie, and so the director quit…He was great [Goyer] I loved where he was going with that story it was great fun, but once that went away, we got let go too.
I’m not going to talk too much about it [in great detail], I know they’re making it still, but I’ll tell you it was… just the story of Greyskull and that sort of thing and there was some really cool stuff in there. I don’t think they’re gonna make that version. I know they’re not going to, it was like a Lord of The Rings film, it was huge! And there was all kinds of stuff in there, you could have divided up that script into three movies, and it would have worked. That’s how big it was. I would have loved to have spent a lot of time on that one. It was a more fantastic version of Lord of The Rings, is what I’ll say. It’s a more colorful and fantastical version of Lord of The Rings, but it felt as real as Lord of The Rings. It was very real but very far-out. It was a final return to science fiction fantasy where we’ve only had one, Star Wars.”
Comparing a live-action He-Man movie to both ‘Lord of the Rings’ and “Star Wars” is bold and now I wish we could see what Goyer had in mind. Sadly, Huante feels that the studio “screwed-up by not allowing Goyer to make it” and in his opinion, the film would have been “a slam-dunk money maker.” While this doesn’t indicate that the new movie will be a success or failure, it does show that what was originally in store for audiences was probably being crafted on a grander scale than the new iteration.
Do you wish we had been able to see David S. Goyer’s ‘Masters of the Universe’? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Source: HN Entertainment
