Travis Knight Made ‘Masters of the Universe’ Because He Really Loves It — and He Thinks You Will, Too

Travis Knight has seen the internet posts. He realizes there are people out there who have their knives out for a “Masters of the Universe” movie. Its title alone sparks accusations of the most cynical motivations, yet the movie itself is winning most people over.

This all very obviously frustrates Knight, who knows he has a good movie and whose track record at this point at least deserves the courtesy of, you know, actually seeing the movie before judging it. On the other hand, there’s a part of him that understands the cynicism, admitting, “If I heard this was coming out, I’d probably be a little bit cynical.”

His aforementioned track record is important. As founder and CEO of LAIKA, he produced “ParaNorman” and “The Boxtrolls.” He then directed the studio’s “Kubo and the Two Strings,” before directing the most critically acclaimed Transformers movie to date, “Bumblebee.” (Later this year, his next LAIKA feature, “Wildwood,” will hit theaters.)

Knight also knew fans of “Masters of the Universe” might not love the idea of some of the film being set on Earth, especially after the 1987 film was set mostly on our planet and was universally loathed. (It’s claimed the 1987 “Masters of the Universe” is now a cult classic, but if you’ve actually ever seen that movie, this is hard to believe.) In Knight’s version, the stint on Earth is much shorter and actually serves the plot of the film in a few clever ways.

If you don’t know anything about “Masters of the Universe,” it’s based on a series of toys introduced by Mattel in 1982 to compete with Kenner’s “Star Wars” line and Hasbro’s “G.I. Joe.” Which means there’s really no true story of “Masters of the Universe.” There are the initial comics that came with the figures, which have a Conan the Barbarian feel to them. Then there’s the Filmation cartoon, which is what most people associate as “the story” and what this film draws from the most.

Young Prince Adam of Eternia (Nicholas Galitzine) is sent to Earth to protect him from the evil and hilarious Skeletor (Jared Leto), who now rules Eternia. The hope is Adam, with the help of his magic sword, will one day return to Eternia and avenge what has happened. Unfortunately, Adam loses the sword and spends the next 15 years on Earth scouring the internet for this sword. Now working a mundane HR job, Adam is not shy about telling people about his childhood on another planet and will explain this to anyone who will listen to him. Adam does find his sword and returns to Eternia, fairly early in the film, to fulfill his destiny as a powerful warrior who (eventually) goes by the name of He-Man. 

Multiple studios have been trying to make a “Masters of the Universe” film for 20 years. Ahead, Knight explains why it’s such a difficult property to adapt and why he is the director who finally got this accomplished. 

The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

IndieWire: What makes these characters so hard to make a movie with? The first movie did not work. Studios have been trying to make this one for 20 years and have literally given up.

Travis Knight: I do think it’s kind of tricky material. In the sense that, it’s weird. It’s almost deranged. It’s pure, uncut, Colombian-grade ‘80s excess. It’s completely out there. There are barbarians with battle axes and swords, robots with laser guns, spaceships, a warlock with a skull for a face. None of that shit should work. Some things shouldn’t go together. And somehow, crazily, they do. And it does work. 

‘Masters of the Universe’Amazon MGM Studios

I know you can’t speak for other filmmakers, but why have others had so much trouble with this property? 

A lot of things have to go right for any movie to get made. On this, we have producers who believe in the material and believe in their filmmaker. And we have Mattel, who completely got behind my vision for the project … those things are not a given. If any one of those things doesn’t work, then the movie doesn’t work. And then, with me, you have a director who knew and loved the material. Sometimes, adaptations, no matter where they come from — book, graphic novel, video game, toy line — when I see them fall down, it’s when the people involved in making the film don’t understand what was special about the thing they are adapting. They don’t love the thing they are adapting. 

For me, it was easy. Well, making a movie is never easy. But it was easy for me to understand what this could be because it was such a huge part of my childhood. I loved it. I love these characters so much. And I knew what that inner eight-year-old would want to see on the big screen. I could see why people would fall down. To try to take this property and turn it into something it isn’t? That would have been a recipe for disaster. So, for me, it was just wrapping our arms around all this weirdness. And that was a virtue.

I was wary because I do not like the 1987 movie in any way. The wariness went away when Trap Jaw shows up and looks like the old action figure. Then Idris Elba as Man-At-Arms kicks off the movie fighting Trap Jaw. That’s hard for me to resist.

Trap Jaw is one of my favorite characters. He was awesome. And he’s like the anti Man-At-Arms, with all of these cool accessories and whatnot. I wanted to get these guys in a close quarters fight. And especially have the action scene be a version of what we had as kids, bashing our action figures together. Those are the things we’d do, smash them together and use all the weapons and the gadgets and all that kind of stuff. What could have been a straightforward action sequence, it made it fun and playful and also very specifically “Masters of the Universe.” All those toys had unique abilities and we played with them that way. I wanted to make sure the action scenes had that same level of authenticity.

Before I saw this, I was also wary that part of the film was set on Earth, like, infamously, the 1987 film. I actually enjoyed this sequence and it serves a few purposes. But did it cross your mind that people didn’t like that in the prior movie? 

Oh, I know. I know. I grew up in that era and I know people did not like it. And I also know it’s kinda taken cult status since then. Not you, Mike Ryan, but others feel that way…

‘Masters of the Universe’ (1987)©Cannon Films/Courtesy Everett Collection

No, I am not on that bandwagon.

But I certainly knew, for a certain segment of the fandom, that was going to be a provocative thing to set even any of it on Earth. And, yet, for the story that we were trying to tell, it made complete sense. It was one of those things that, I knew when it came out, people were going to be pissed off…

Wow, really?

But wait, it will make sense! You’ll be happy! And we found that in our early screenings that even fans who were skeptical about that aspect of it had, in fact, loved that aspect of it. And it does help do a couple of things for our story. Not the least of which, it helps people who aren’t familiar with “Masters” have a way in that’s grounded for them.

How did you choose what peripheral characters to include? Why Fisto over Stratos? 

Look, I wanted to get Stratos in there, too. I wanted to get everybody in there! I wanted to get Snout Spout in there! 

Stinkor.

[Laughs] Yes, Stinkor, exactly. But at some point, you’re just being irresponsible about it because you’re properly telling a story. You have to be focused. I basically put my favorite characters in the movie, everyone that I could. Then we drew from many different iterations of the mythology. The main thing we leaned into was the original toy line and the mini comics, and the Filmation cartoon. But then we drew from some obscure sources, like this weird comic strip, we took a character from that. We took a couple of characters from the 1987 movie — of course, Dolph [Lundgren, original film star] is in the movie as well. Anytime you’ve got this thing that’s been kicking around for 40 years, it’s going to be wildly inconsistent.

What was the call to Dolph Lundgren like? Asking him to make a cameo for a movie that when he did it, it didn’t do well. 

He was super-cool about it. I was desperate to get Dolph into the movie. I kept hounding the producers, “I have to get in touch with Dolph! I have to get in touch with Dolph!” So, when I finally did connect with him, I told him what I was thinking and he was down for it. He was such a good sport.

The character actually meant something to him. It famously did not do particularly well at the box office, but he loved the character. So the idea he could play a part in this symbolic passing of the torch from the previous cinematic He-Man to the new cinematic He-Man, he was totally down for that. He was such a good sport and so much fun to work with on the day, And it was actually quite moving for me to see those two guys together. 

You mentioned the mini comics, the stories that came with the first line of figures released are so different from what this became. They are more Conan the Barbarian type stories. 

They are absolutely nothing like the Filmation cartoons. So even right off the bat it was completely inconsistent. But, look, it actually helps when you’re shaping a story because you just draw from those things that you love for the story you are trying to tell, which is what we did. 

‘Masters of the Universe’©MGM/Courtesy Everett Collection

I really did enjoy this Skeletor. When Skeletor wasn’t on screen, I did find myself thinking, where’s Skeletor?

I loved Skeletor when I was a kid. I do think he’s one of the most iconic villains of the ‘80s. So, if we were going to bring him to life on the big screen, I wanted to make sure we did him justice. He looked cool. He was scary. He was funny. He was big and theatrical. He was insulting his toadies all the time. He had a weird voice and a weird laugh. We wanted to make sure we were honoring all that stuff. It’s just a new, fresh, modern, cinematic version of it. Jared grew up in the ‘80s and Skeletor was his favorite character, so he understood what made Skeletor special. And he just gives this show-stopping, scenery-chewing performance. 

Alison Brie is a little younger, was she familiar with Evil-Lyn? 

She actually knew her. A lot of the actors had some association with the characters. But Alison has never really played a character like this. She’s amazing in everything. She can do anything. She’s so funny. They were a good duo. There were things that didn’t make the movie that I shot with them that I love…

Like what? 

There was this really, really great scene that they had where Skeletor was being vulnerable with her and, of course, it doesn’t go well. 

Skeletor’s voice is very different from the cartoon series voice.

We didn’t want to engage in mimicry. We didn’t want to do an Allen Oppenheimer Skeletor impression. The reason why, back in the ‘80s with the cartoon, he had that ridiculous nasal voice and it was because, for a kids cartoon, he was very scary looking and they wanted to give him a silly voice to take the edge off of that. We did not want to do that in our movie, but we still wanted to have a distinctive voice. He’s the only one in the movie who speaks with an accent — that, basically, it’s put on. It’s all show. He’s very theatrical. He just wants to be noticed. He just wants to be seen.

This movie pokes a lot of fun of some of the aspects of this world, I hate the phrase “thread the needle,” but it does seem like a small hole you had to get through…

It was a really small hole. 

So how do you make fun of and honor something at the same time?

It is hard to do. It’s definitely a tightrope to walk. I don’t like this trend where these things are looked at ironically. Looking down our nose at the story we are telling. I don’t believe in that at all. There is something inherently goofy about this world and these characters. I don’t think that’s something to look down our nose at, but something to wrap our arms around. But you have to acknowledge it. Yeah, we know this is silly, but we also love it. It’s not done with judgement, it’s done with affection.

‘Masters of the Universe’©MGM/Courtesy Everett Collection

That’s a good explanation. This isn’t, if you like this you’re stupid.

No, not at all. We are never passing judgment. We love it. We know it’s silly, but we love that aspect about it. I felt if we have an emotional center, that gives you license to do some of the stuff, because we will always have the core of it that remains. I think we did that. 

It’s clever that Adam comes up with some of the more ridiculous names as he’s trying to remember all these warriors while he’s stuck on Earth for 15 years. That’s a good way to explain why someone would be named Fisto.

Yes. And it’s how we looked at these characters as a child. So when Adam was a kid, that’s how he looked at the world. It’s a way we can justify these absolutely ridiculous names these characters have — because they were seen through a child’s eyes. 

You alluded earlier to the reaction online. I’ve seen a lot of cynicism toward this movie from people who haven’t seen it yet. What do you make of that?

Well, look, it’s the tenor of the times. There’s a general cynicism to most things. I can see why people would be cynical! I can see why people have their knives out and are ready to pounce on something and talk shit about something. It happens. A lot of the time it’s a function of people caring about something and feel like they’ve been let down in the past. So, a lot of that are people who care. [Laughs] Some of it is people being dicks, and that’s the world we live in. But, to that I would say, when we show the movie to people, they like it. They enjoy it. 

I am one of them. 

And because I loved this stuff, too, if I heard this was coming out, I’d probably be a little bit cynical. But, I think, when people see it and people realize the joy, the love, the sincerity we put behind it — me, the cast, the crew, we sincerely care about this movie. We put so much of ourselves into it. So my best answer to this is, give it a shot. You’re going to have a good time.

Amazon MGM Studios will release “Masters of the Universe” in theaters on Friday, June 5.