Netflix drops Masters of the Universe movie

While Barbie is about to be a hit, Musclor, Tila and Orko will have to find a new studio…

Barbie by Greta Gerwig was released this Wednesday in French cinemas, ready to establish itself as one of the biggest successes of 2023 on an international scale. The famous doll that inspired the film was created by Mattel, which is behind the creation of several cult toys, such as Barney the dinosaur or even Masters of the Universe.

After Barbie, the Mattel universe is already preparing a new film on Barney, the dinosaur

While a Netflix live adaptation of Masters of the Universe should have seen the light of day, Variety announced on Tuesday the cancellation of the project, despite the 30 million dollars already spent in the beginnings of its development, including in particular an already substantial advance for the duo of directors Adam and Aaron Nee and the lead actor Kyle Allen. Some sources relayed by Variety believe that the amount spent on the production would actually be much larger than announced, although the figures are not known.

“In Masters of the Universean orphan named Adam discovers that he is a prince destined to be the savior of a distant land and must quickly learn his power and the importance of saving his true homeland from an evil force.“, revealed the official synopsis of the film.

As a reminder, the rights of Masters of the Universe had a tortuous path to get to the screens. An adaptation had initially been started by Warner Bros. then by Sony Pictures, before Netflix recently took over the project. The cancellation of the project has been confirmed by a representative of Mattel, without more details having been communicated for the moment. As Variety recalls, the film should have cost nearly $ 200 million on arrival, but Netflix saw its stock market fall after some investors began to worry about a certain loss of subscribers in recent months.

The directors of the Netflix film firm Scott Stuber and Bela Bajaria have nevertheless reassured the industry by swearing that they have money to spend on the platform’s original productions. Sources close to Variety, however, report that Netflix would have refused to invest 150 million dollars in a film where the main actor would be little known to the general public. Still according to another source from Variety, the project would in fact never have been completely validated by Netflix, which has always hesitated to produce and distribute it after the producers put a substantial budget of nearly 180 million dollars on the table. After several discussions between the two parties, Netflix had planned for a time to produce two films at the same time, without the project having materialized.

Ynon Kreiz, CEO of Mattel, was still praising this adaptation a few weeks ago in an interview for the New Yorker: “The film will be as important as those of Marvel and DC! (…) We have a hundred pages with lots of characters, wizards but also vehicles and armory…“The Masters of the Universe are now looking for a new studio.

Barbie: Greta Gerwig’s film is not plastic (review)

While waiting to see if they will one day be able to land on cinema or television screens in the flesh, Barbie was released this Wednesday in French cinemas.