HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE is one property to always seems to be hopping around Hollywood. Cut from the same cloth as TRANSFORMERS, HE-MAN was another 80s cartoon based on a toy line that’s placed a real heavy stamp on pop culture, for better or worse. Last year, we reported that Christopher Yost, one of the screenwriters for the upcoming THOR: RAGNAROK film, was penning the script to the MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE film, and now, several months later, it looks like we have a potential director in the works.

According to Deadline, TERMINATOR SALVATION director McG is currently in talks with Sony Pictures, Escape Artists, and Franklin Entertainment to take on the film as his next project. Now, of course, the knee-jerk reaction is a bit of a cringe from me. TERMINATOR SALVATION was a film that looked amazing in trailer form, but when it came down to the movie itself, I was bored to tears. That being said, there hasn’t been a good TERMINATOR film in years, and the direction was hardly the only thing wrong with that film (though it was a part of it).

Since SALVATION, McG has largely stuck to TV, directing TV movies here and there, as well as bringing many shows to life like THE MYSTERIES OF LAURA, KEVIN FROM WORK, and more recently SHADOWHUNTERS: THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS. Now I won’t sit here and pretend I’ve seen any of these films before–I haven’t seen a single one–but there is something to be said for a director who’s able to go off and do so many different projects in TV. My hope is that this experience has positively affected him, and that he’ll be able to bring that experience to the MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE project.

Granted, he definitely has an uphill battle with this one. The whole “buff men with sword-and-sandals” genre has been in shambles lately. Between 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE and both HERCULES films in recent years, there hasn’t been a good one of those in quite some time, and MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE isn’t really a property that screams quality. 

At the end of the day, what matters most is that McG has a great script to work with. It’s comforting to know that Christopher Yost has THOR: RAGNAROK under his belt, but we don’t know if that movie’s any good, and we also don’t know what type of interference Sony will pull for a film like this (or how much Marvel changed what Yost had). Either way, given a great script, I believe McG could do a serviceable job, but at this point, it really is a question of the material they decide to shoot.

They certainly have their work cut out for them…

Let’s hope Sony has their act together with this one. If not, they’ll be in for a real disappoint come box office time. 

What do you think of McG potentially directing the MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE film? Let us know in the comments down below.

SOURCE: Deadline