Color me shocked and ashamed on this one, but I had no clue that there’s a new He-Man movie in development. Currently Masters of the Universe, the project began with a screenplay entitled Grayskull, and the guy who wrote The Mechanic and The Expendables 2 (I’d pay a million dollars to watch an Expendables film be written) is attached to write the story of one of the most baffling toy lines of my childhood.

Seriously, how did nobody know that Prince Adam was He-Man. THEY’RE IDENTICAL! Even Clark Kent gave people a little credit and wore glasses. I know it’s not a big deal but even as a child this made me so angry. But I digress. Dig me out of this nerd hole, Variety.

Sony Pictures and Escape Artists will continue tapping the hot hand of scribe Richard Wenk (“The Equalizer”), who will rewrite He-Man pic “Masters of the Universe.”

Jon M. Chu is set to direct the live-action film based on the popular Mattel toy line.

Story follows a young prince who becomes a warrior and sets out to defeat the evil Skeletor and fulfill his destiny as He-Man.

I’ve always been sort of surprised that a He-Man reboot never happened after the 1987 mess that shared the name of this new version (seriously, what was up with that hairy dwarf?), but then you should never try to recreate any Dolph Lundgren movie, because they’re all perfect. Still, I’m confused about a couple things.

Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week, DreamWorks Animation spent a ton of money to make two tons of money, as the company purchased Classic Media and all of the popular animated titles that come with it. For $155 million, DreamWorks is now in the driver’s seat for rebooting some of the most popular cartoons of past generations. Ain’t none of this Spongebob Liberalpants baloney that your kids are being brainwashed with today. No sir.

According to Moviefone, this deal is basically a cash cow that will probably net DreamWorks billions as the company re-introduces franchise after franchise. But there’s just one pain-in-the-ass obstacle standing in the way.

The plan for the re-christened DreamWorks Classic is to develop new adventures for this library of characters on the big screen.

However, it’s not going to be without some complications: Classic Media doesn’t own all of its characters outright so it’s going to take a couple of years to get rights issues sorted out (in this regard, it’s very similar to Disney’s acquisition of Marvel Comics). Either way, DreamWorks has already gotten started on a “Mr. Peabody and Sherman” movie, set for November 2013.

The most notable Classic Media titles that DreamWorks won’t benefit from for quite some time are The Lone Ranger (currently a Jerry Bruckheimer Films project) and Where’s Waldo? (being produced by MGM), as those are currently being produced by other studios.

Classic Media’s catalog doesn’t feature too many titles that haven’t received the feature film treatment – notably Archie and Magnus: Robot Fighter – as plenty of other titles have already come and gone, including Casper, Dick Tracy, Dudley Do-Right, Fat Albert, Felix the Cat, George of the Jungle, Gumby, He-Man, Lassie, Mr. Magoo, Richie Rich, Rocky & Bullwinkle, and Underdog.

If anything, this is absolutely fantastic news for Brendan Fraser.

He-Man sings a disco-y cover of “What’s Going On” by 4 Non-Blondes. …Yeah.  Just watch it. It’s just as weird and 10 times as awesome as it sounds. |Urlesque|

DAILY CIRCLE JERK LINKS

• Robopanda’s 15 funny redundant photos. |Uproxx|
• Buildin’ human organs out of miniature legos, G. |GammaSquad|
• Paul Reiser is the antichrist, so NBC gives him another show. |WarmingGlow|
• Newly-minted WithLeather writer Burnsy reports on Glee getting the post-Super Bowl slot. |WithLeather|
• The top 10 crazy backstage demands. |AskMen|
• Delonte West bones Lebron James’ mom, and the 20 craziest rumors in sports. |BleacherReport|
• A robot presides over a wedding service in Wisconsin.  Ha, just kidding, it was Japan. |Asylum|
• This corgi only responds to its owner’s bad Beatles impressions. |CollegeHumor|
• The top 20 fictional gadgets.  Number one?  The clitoris. |Gunaxin|
• The Dave Chappelle gif of the week. |UnrealityMag|
• Great moments in Cleveland sports history. |SportsPickle|
• Ever wonder what happens when you OD on Viagra? |FListed|
• The booty pop test with Olivia Munn and that guy, Professor Whatshisface. |G4|

Who doesn't remember when He-Man taught us all an important lesson about "The Stranger"?

If you were freaking out that we’d never see a (second) He-Man movie, take a hit of this inhaler and relax, because it’s coming.  The project, once set up at WB and with a spec script written by Justin Marks of “He walks through the rain drops” Street Fighter fame, was later dropped by WB and picked up by Columbia like so much prison soap. Today’s news is that Columbia has hired Mike Finch and Alex Litvak, who wrote the upcoming Predators reboot, to write a new script.  And it will probably be really good, because Mattel has story approval.  And because it’s about He-Man.

Columbia picked up rights to the property in the fall, when Mattel and Warner Bros.  couldn’t agree on a creative vision. The addition of the rising writers is the first major move on the property and signals the project is being rebuilt from the ground up. While at Warners, “Masters” went through several writers and in latter stages had John Stevenson, who co-helmed “Kung Fu Panda,” attached to direct.

Getting the go-ahead to tackle any major toy-brand film can be tricky. Depending on the property, writers and directors need to get a thumbs-up from the studio, which then has to win approval from the toy company. In the case of “Masters,” Mattel has story approval.

In their pitch, the scribes attempted to balance a treatment that would convince the studio it was cinematic and keep the toy company satisfied that its characters were being portrayed appropriately. [HeatVision]

Well it is tough to get people to portray He-Man appropriately.  Like my mom, who was always calling my He-Man toys “dolls.”  Duh, mom, only girls play with stupid dolls.  Boys play with totally awesome, totally buff blond dudes with chiseled bodies and sweet bangs, and they’re called action figures, ya dumb bitch.  But don’t worry about her, she barely comes down here anymore.

A

He-Man movie that had been in development at WB and since dropped, has been picked up by Columbia. The blogosphere had been really excited about the last He-Man script, because it was written by the guy who did Street Fighter: The Legend of Chris Klein’s Awful Acting and was described as “Lord of the Rings meets The Matrix meets Batman Begins”.  It’s true, bloggers are stupid.  Meanwhile, Universal and Mattel have announced plans for a movie version of Barbie.  My favorite part of that story was the opening line.

Universal Pictures has added Barbie to its star stable.

Haha, ‘stable’, get it?  Because Barbie is a whore and Universal is a pimp.  A ‘no-good pimp I wouldn’t trust to wash my car,’ specifically.  Anyway, since this news is surprising to precisely no one, let’s all have a good laugh at how they try to justify this.  Sure, I believe you, Universal, you’re just trying to pay your way through college. Now turn around so I can stick another Washington in your cooter.

Read the rest of this entry »