MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (Gary Goddard, 1987)

[Jox]

http://www.he-man.org/cartoon/document.php?id=51&mid=26

[Jox]

When he acquired the rights to make a MOTU movie, producer Ed Pressman was turned down by a almost every studio before he went to Cannon (despite the cash cow that was MOTU circa 1982-86 no one believed it was adaptable for a reasonable budget). Anyway what I didn't know and can be found in the Variety and LA Times, is that at some point MOTU was to be made with RKO and filmed in Mexico's Churubusco Studios:
http://articles.latimes.com/1985-07-24/ ... nture-film

Film To Be Based On Line Of Toys
July 24, 1985|JACK MATHEWS
A $20-million science-fiction adventure film based on Mattel Toys' "Masters of the Universe" will go into production early next year, with a target release date of Christmas, 1986.

The film will be a co-production of RKO Pictures and Edward R. Pressman Film Corp., said RKO President Mark Seiler, and will be distributed by a major Hollywood studio.


RKO is funding two other Pressman films--"Plenty," starring Meryl Streep, and "Half Moon Street," with Sigourney Weaver and Michael Caine. Both of those movies will be released by 20th Century Fox.

"Masters of the Universe" will be produced by Howard Kazanjian ("Return of the Jedi") and directed by Gary Goddard, a screenwriter ("Tarzan, the Ape Man") and West Coast stage director.

[Jox]

http://sbpdl.net/2011/05/07/thor-an-upd ... -universe/

[Jox]

"Artist Rudy Obrero (who did some of the beautiful artworks for the toys boxes and mini-comics covers) with some of his unused poster art for Masters of the Universe: The Motion Picture". Courtesy of Roger Lay Jr and the team behind the upcoming documentary (in the making) TOY MASTERS: HOW HE-MAN AND MATTEL CONQUERED THE UNIVERSE


"Legendary special effects wizard Richard Edlund (Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters, Masters of the Universe) during his interview for TOY MASTERS."


"Meeting with producer / director Gary Goddard (Masters of the Universe: The Motion Picture, Terminator 2: 3-D, Star Trek: The Experience, Jurassic Park: The Ride)."

[Ivan, Jr.]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding that He-Man was actually a big fluke! I've heard Mattel had the rights to make the action figures for the original 1982 "Conan The Barbarian" movie and made as many as they could before the movie came out. But when the MPAA gave it an "R" rating, they realized none of the kids that would buy the Conan action figures would be able to see the movie ! What the hell were they to do with all of these thousands of muscular action figures now? Someone pitched the idea of "He-Man" and they ran with it. All they did was replace the head on all of the Conan bodies and change the name. The He-Man toys were a big hit, as was the the cartoon series that soon followed leading up to our main man Dolph portraying him on the big screen.

[Jox]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding that He-Man was actually a big fluke! I've heard Mattel had the rights to make the action figures for the original 1982 "Conan The Barbarian" movie and made as many as they could before the movie came out. But when the MPAA gave it an "R" rating, they realized none of the kids that would buy the Conan action figures would be able to see the movie ! What the hell were they to do with all of these thousands of muscular action figures now? Someone pitched the idea of "He-Man" and they ran with it. All they did was replace the head on all of the Conan bodies and change the name.

No actually, I had this discussion recently with head of marketing Joe Morrison about it: Mattel did license CONAN and presented it at the US Trade at the same time as MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE but it was a parallel thing. Remember that the MOTU toys came out in 1982 (some markets would even have seen it end of '81), the same year as the CONAN movie, not after and so He-Man and MASTERS were developed in 1980-81.

[Ivan, Jr.]

How do you obtain so much info on Dolph, Jox!? To quote Tool's question(asked twice) of Barney Ross in "The Expendables": "Don't you ever sleep, brother?". All hail Jox aka The real He(who knows all about Dolph)-Man: Master of The(knowledge of the Dolph) Universe!

[Jox]

Haha thanks I do love the sleep and I'm not an insomniac so I need my fix I've been collecting magazines and infos stuff for 20+ years and currently I'm doing a lot of research for a project I'm working on, which makes me speak (and get even more info from) with a lot of people involved in Dolph's movies one way or another.

[Jox]

Printable (TIF 3180x4333 pixels) scanned and restored Earl Norem movie poster design:
http://koti.mbnet.fi/jukka_i/org/poster ... _norem.tif
(22,9 MB right-click and "save target as")

[Jox]

35mm screening in London on September 10th at Prince Charles Cinema's Good Bad Movie Club with original VHS giveaway!
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=211304228898432
http://www.princecharlescinema.com/inde ... splay=1707

[viendammage]

35mm screening in London on September 10th at Prince Charles Cinema's Good Bad Movie Club with original VHS giveaway!
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=211304228898432
http://www.princecharlescinema.com/inde ... splay=1707

Awesome. Saw this movie in a theater when I was 5 years old and again when I was 26. Still a magical time at the movies. My old VHS has that great Drew Sturzan poster art. Wish I had a 27 x 40 of that to go with the Dolph one. I told you guys about visiting the street in Whittier, California where they filmed the music shop scene and one of the stores was selling the one sheets? The guy told us a few stories about the production being there...

[Jox]

I told you guys about visiting the street in Whittier, California where they filmed the music shop scene and one of the stores was selling the one sheets? The guy told us a few stories about the production being there...

Please do tell!

[viendammage]

I told you guys about visiting the street in Whittier, California where they filmed the music shop scene and one of the stores was selling the one sheets? The guy told us a few stories about the production being there...

Please do tell!

A buddy and I were randomly checking out a comic shop that happened to be in Whittier, CA. A very quaint, small town street filled with shops. The actual comic shop was a pretty crummy store, more like an antique store with a few comics in the front. But hanging on the wall was a bad ass Masters of the Universe poster!

Advertised underneath was that it was filmed on the very street the store was on. I asked for a poster but they couldn't find one, soon a guy came out and found a few, he talked about how the production took over the street at night, blew the shit out of stuff/stores, Courtney Cox was still a minor so she had her mother there. Before he really opened up he looked at us being twenty years younger than him and said, I'm starting to feel old...

It was a full sized poster, 27 x 40 but it was folded instead of rolled.

[Jox]

Good stuff!

Courteney Cox was a minor? Yet according to her (official?) birth date she would have been in her early twenties, about 22 I believe... Anyway she seemed to me like the perfect archetype of a girlfriend in that movie (remember I was 8-9 when I first saw it).

[Jox]

props from collector's own privaite collections:
http://www.yourprops.com/view_items.php ... %281987%29