Here Are Some Things Somebody Said about the He-Man Movie

Jon M. Chu got the Masters of the Universe movie directing gig after seemingly knocking G.I. Joe: Retaliation out of the park, and proving tha you could have a movie based on an ’80s toyline that didn’t pander to the lowest common denominator. Now, even before I’ve seen the movie, I’ve become a Chu apologist, because I gave him shit for only having directed a couple of the Step Up movies and the Justin Beiber concert movies — and yet, by all indications, Retaliation looks like it could be great. He’s getting my benefit of the doubt, is what I’m saying. So you think I’d be excited about what he told Celebuzz about his plan for the He-Man movie:

“I was approached about doing a Masters of the Universe movie and while at first I was skeptical. I read the script and I was blown away. I had no idea what to expect but it was such a fresh, UNEXPECTED approach I was immediately intrigued. I never expected to connect on a human level to a MOTU movie but I really plugged in emotionally. That alone, got me excited to see what we could do with the property. MOTU is such a challenging puzzle to make into a movie that works to a contemporary audience but the script seemed to really crack it for me. I think people are really going to be surprised at the rich story we have the opportunity to tell in this world. Where you think MOTU goes left, the script goes right and it was just very clear to me this was something very special.”

“I feel like there’s a lot of room to crack open the Masters of the Universe story. We are still in our process and I think we have some great seeds planted but making one of these types of movies RIGHT takes a lot of TONAL tightroping so we’re just going to play for the next several months. Play with designs, play with the characters, try new things, maybe go too far on some things and pull back. The process is really important to find where the right line is so we can land right on it. I think that’s what can dig out the [property’s] full potential for a cinematic rebirth.”

“I don’t really think about the 80s movie when looking at this movie because the script here is so strong and so unique. I think the characters are so grounded and layered I never expected that in a Masters movie so to me it’s on a totally different level. Don’t get me wrong, I love the 80s movie for full nostalgic reasons but this script feels like it’s a totally different genre than that one.”