By Tom Hartig on July 19, 2023 at 12:08 pm

30 million dollars down the drain: Netflix is calling it quits and abandoning its live-action adaptation of "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe". The future of the project is uncertain.

It's quite sad: Mattel's famous toy world has been in planning for a remake since 2007. In the meantime, Warner Bros. and Sony came on board and a number of directors were in talks. The project eventually ended up at Netflix: The directors were to be Adam and Aaron Nee, who most recently brought "The Lost City" with Channing Tatum and Sandra Bullock to the cinema. The leading actor of He-Man had also already been found in Kyle Allen. Pre-production began and a total of $30 million was spent.

Turns out it was too expensive for Netflix: As Variety reports, the streaming giant is now scrapping everything. The total cost of the production was last estimated to be around 200 million dollars, but Netflix was willing to provide a maximum of 150 million - including pre-production. It is unclear, however, whether this is the ultimate end for the movie: rights holder Mattel still wants to see its cult classic filmed and is now looking for new backers. With the currently popular "Barbie" movie, the chances of this happening are likely not that bad.

"He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" was a huge hit for the toy manufacturer Mattel in the 80s, and was followed by animated series and a feature film - which, by the way, bankrupted the movie distributor Cannon Films at the time.