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G.I. Joe 2 Director Poised to Get My Hopes Up for a Live-Action He-Man Movie, Then Crush Them


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From Deadline:

EXCLUSIVE: Jon M. Chu is in talks to helm Masters Of The Universe, a live-action film based on the signature Mattel toy line that is in high gear at Sony Pictures and Escape Artists.

Talks are just getting underway with Chu, who is in the middle of a 3D conversion on G.I. Joe: Retaliation, and is preparing to shoot a couple of new scenes for the film, which was pushed to a March 29, 2013 release by Paramount. The Masters film revolves around He-Man, a prince who transforms into a warrior and becomes the last hope for a magical world that has been ravaged by the sinister Skeletor.
This is an exceedingly complicated issue for me, so I hope you don’t mind if I work through a few things with a pro/com list.
PRO:
? Based on the trailer for G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Jon Chu looks to not only have created a good, fun, exciting action movie, but it seems like he really gets the Joe property.
CONS:
? Since Retaliation hasn’t come out yet, we can’t be certain it’s as good as it looks. Remember, the only movies Chu has directed prior to this include the Justin Bieber concert movie and a few Step Ups.
? Just because Chu gets G.I. Joe does not mean he gets MotU
? Even if Chu “gets” MotU, MotU is a notoriously difficult property for Hollywood to get its cocaine-addled minds around. The studio could have Adam be an astronaut who lands on Eternia (which, seriously, was in a MotU movie script at one point).
? Even if all these things come together, I’m such a horrible, disgusting, ridiculous He-Man nerd that there’s almost no way that I could ever be pleased with the result, as it won’t live up to the hilariously, stupidly perfect ideal of Masters of the Universe I have in my head. It’s a vision which has no bearing on reality or, indeed, any way the series has ever been presented, and which has kept me bitching about every single MotU release and incarnation since the original ’80s toys.
Okay. Obviously I’m a major part of the problem here, but I stand by my claim that Hollywood does not “get” MotU, which is why the property’s been languishing in development hell while Transformers and G.I. Joe made a zillion bucks. Maybe Chu’s exactly what the property needs. If he is, then I’d like to apologize to him and all you readers in advance for how shitty I’m going to be about it.