Long-Gestating 'Masters Of The Universe' Movie May Land At Amazon

Adam and Aaron Nee are still attached, but there are some definite hurdles

The power to get a new live-action movie off the ground has eluded the Masters of the Universe for a very long time. The latest hurdle came in July, when Netflix dropped the film when the $200 million+ budget could not be meaningfully lowered, leaving Mattel to shop it to a new distributor. Now four months later, one may finally have been found.

Amazon MGM Studios is in serious talks to take on the film from Adam and Aaron Nee, who were behind the version Netflix dropped, as this will apparently be a new script, according to several insiders. Netflix spent nearly $30 million in development costs over two years. The last actor attached as lead was Kyle Allen, who most recently appeared in A Haunting In Venice. Now his status is listed as “still in the mix”, which certainly seems like a downgrade. The talks with Amazon are reported to have been “tenuous”. Should the studio advance, it will need to close new deals with the Nees to tidy up the script as well as to to direct. Mattel and producer Todd Black, who has been devoted to the film dating far back into development, including when it was at Warner Bros. and Sony, will also be seeking a significant theatrical release, which at Netflix was never going to materialize. Amazon MGM and Mattel had no comment.

However, there’s an even bigger hurdle to overcome: Rights issues. Masters of the Universe is entangled in a rather confusing web that stretches back more than a decade to July 2012 when DreamWorks Animation purchased them as part of Classic Media, soon rebranded to DreamWorks Classics. That is a library that not only featured Filmation’s work, but Harvey Films and UPA, among others. The deal said Mattel could exploit characters for filmed adaptations through 2026. As DreamWorks Animation became part of NBCUniversal in 2016, this means the megacorp could interfere with any potential sequels that Amazon MGM would want to develop in favor of bringing the franchise to Universal Pictures. That is an important producer need when investing hundreds of millions of dollars in a movie so big. NBCU and Mattel have been in talks for weeks to possibly extend the rights, and a deal looks likely to be reached, though once again comment wasn’t given, this time sought from an NBCU representative. 

Should the rights negotiations be successful, it would represent the first big get for Amazon’s new head of theatrical film and streaming, Courtenay Valenti, whose experience coming from Warner Bros. includes adapting another Mattel property, Barbie, which has made $1.4 billion at the global box office and is generating Oscar buzz. The name may also be familiar from recent developments surrounding the once-shelved Warner Bros. film Coyote vs. Acme, a film she majorly championed when she was still at the studio and thus has made Amazon a leading contender for new landing spot.

Source: Variety