Deadline reports that director McG is in talks to helm Sony’s Masters Of The Universe reboot, a project that has been in development since at least 2007 because it’s difficult to turn dumb ideas into quality products. The movie will be a fresh take on the adventures of He-Man and Skeletor, first conceived by Mattel in the early ’80s to convince boys that Hasboro’s G.I. Joe toys didn’t have long enough hair or big enough pecs. All that rich mythology finally made it to the screen in 1987’s Masters Of The Universe, starring Dolph Lundgren and Frank Langella; while not a great movie, it undoubtedly is one, with a beginning, middle, and end, and somehow—along with the toys, animated series, and comic books—made enough of a cultural impact to convince Hollywood that this story must be told through the ages.
The current iteration of the Masters Of the Universe film was written by Kick-Ass 2 director Jeff Wadlow and then rewritten by Thor: Ragnarok writer Christopher Yost. According to /Film, the film is being rewritten again by Alex Litvak and Mike Finch (Predators), who actually worked on a draft back in 2010 and presumably have returned to either add some timely subtext about drone warfare or to change Evil-Lyn’s name to something that’s not really ridiculous. McG will also oversee the rewrite before beginning production, which is bad news for people who don’t consider Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle or Terminator: Salvation to be paragons of storytelling. Still, this project has been gestating in Castle Grayskull for so long that who knows whether McG will be able to break the spell and bring it to fruition.