Oh He-Man, what might have been. The newest incarnation of the He-Man movie is now officially dead. Mattel, the toy company that obviously owns the rights to He-Man, licensed the film rights to Fox2000 who in turn have been working on developing the film.
However, as our friends at Moviehole point out, the project has been wrought with problems:
Its been a long and tumultuous journey for the “He-Man” pic – its been delayed multiple times, has seen several writers come and go (They were unsure about Rifkin’s script too – suggesting another writer may have even been approached before the project left Fox’s hands), and seemingly had to wait until a space cleared in the ever-so-busy calendar of producer, Woo. (The studio even tried to coax Woo into directing at one stage). Though the studio can’t confirm, there were believed to be several actors being looked at for the role of the Battle-Cat rider: Paul Walker, Triple H, Chris Showerman and Matthew Davis.
Fox has officially walked away from the project and has given the film rights back to Mattel, so this story is closed. Despite my initial geeky excitement for the project, the reality is that He-Man is much like The Smurfs now…. cool in it’s day, but no one cares about it really anymore and probably wouldn’t have been financially viable in the theaters. Mattel may still get a He-Man movie made eventually, but for now it’s done… and that’s probably a good thing.
