If The Crow can finally escape from countless false starts and over a decade stuck in development hell to finally begin making its way to screens in the not too distant future, then maybe there’s hope for Masters of the Universe yet, which has spent just as long trying and repeatedly failing to reboot.
Reports have been circulating since as far back as 2004 that the cult classic fantasy that tanked at the box office and took an absolute pasting from critics before eventually finding long-lasting life as a cheese-laden favorite was getting a fresh coat of paint and gearing up for a return to the realm of live-action, but it simply wasn’t to be.
For a while, it looked as though Netflix would be the one to finally drag it across the finish line, with The Lost City directors Adam and Aaron Nee talking up their Marvel-esque plans and casting Kyle Allen in the role of He-Man, only for the streaming service to pull the plug having already spent upwards of $30 million on development and pre-production when the skyrocketing costs proved too prohibitive even for a company willing to spend ridiculous amounts of money on utter garbage.
Of course, Mattel won’t be giving up seeing as it took the completely wrong idea from Barbie and decided people want toy movies instead of acclaimed cultural phenomenons that speak to an under-served audience, but the boardroom can at least draw solace from the fact people are still watching Dolph Lundgren in his tiny underpants taking down the threat of Frank Langella’s gloriously hammy Skeletor.
Per FlixPatrol, Masters of the Universe can be found as one of the biggest hits on Paramount Plus, so the appetite is evidently still there.