Meanwhile, at Castle Grayskull, Netflix kills He-Man movie
After spending $30 million on development, Netflix is taking the first ship off Eternia
Netflix is putting down its entertaining Mattel product. Per Variety, after spending $30 million developing a new He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe movie, the streamer has driven a sword through the project. He-Man is dead at Netflix, and on this, the week of Mattel’s daughter’s coronation.
The problem came down to money—and Netflix doesn’t have much of that anymore, what with those pesky actors and writers demanding paychecks. Directors Adam and Aaron Nee, hired on the back of the Sandra Bullock action rom-com, The Lost City, wanted to make a $200 million He-Man, which admittedly is pretty freakin’ expensive for a movie about a buff guy who fights a skeleton man that will never make a dime in a theater. It seemed like things were moving in the right direction, though, considering they cast Kyle Allen as He-Man.
However, the streamer was reportedly hesitant about pouring so much money into a He-Man movie without a big muscley star rocking the bowl cut. So Netflix offered $150 million, begging the question, how much does that sword have to cost? The Nees returned with a $180 million budget, including the already sunk cost, to no avail. Mattel is currently shopping the project elsewhere, hoping the projected success of Barbie drives some interest toward movies based on toys. And apparently, the script for He-Man is toyetic as hell.
“It’s as big as Marvel and DC,” Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz told the New Yorker in an article about all the wonderful toy movies on the horizon. “It’s hundreds of pages of characters and sorcerers and vehicles and weaponry—you name it. And then you flip through the pages, and here’s a movie, and here’s a movie, and here’s a TV show. It’s endless!”
We take that last bit as a threat.
Meanwhile, Variety surmises that Netflix balked at the budget because the streamer lost $50 billion after failing to meet subscriber goals last year. The outlet’s sources say that wasn’t the case, but as we know, the company began shaking users down over shared passwords to make up the difference. We suppose canceling He-Man movies is also helping.
The film would’ve been the third He-Man brand extension on Netflix since the dual premiere of Masters Of The Universe: Revelation and He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe in 2021. The former, created by Kevin Smith, ran for one season and became the subject of one of those ridiculous backlashes about how He-Man died of “woke mind virus” or something. Who can keep up with what YouTubers are complaining about these days? The latter went largely unnoticed for three seasons.
Maybe we all need to take a step back and consider how much a movie about He-Man needs to cost. Maybe Netflix needs to apply this thinking to its run of $200 million epics that evaporate upon release. Either way, wake us when the “Mattel And Mars Bar Quick Energy Choco Bot Hour” is legal.