OMG!!! Live Action Masters of the Universe

How cool is this:

Woo-Man And The Masters Of The Universe

John Woo to direct He-Man live action movie
“I am Adam, Prince of Eternia, defender of the secrets of Castle Greyskull.
This is Cringer, my fearless friend. Fabulous secret powers were revealed to me the day I held aloft my magic sword and said:
"By the power of Greyskull! I have the power!"… And I became He-Man, the most powerful man in the universe.”

So ran the spoken intro to He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe, that fabulously cheesy ‘80s cartoon in which a Hitler wet dream – muscle-bound, blond and, erm, a Master of the Universe – defended the planet of Eternia against the evil skull-faced Skeletor and his cronies.

Why do we bring it up? Well, as we all know, the series was turned into a cacktastic live-action film in 1987, with Hitler wet dream Dolph Lundgren as He-Man, but Hollywood clearly feels that enough water has passed under the bridge, because it was announced today that John Woo will both produce and direct another live-action version.

Adam Rifkin will write the script for the movie, which Woo will probably direct after his next movie, videogame actioner Spy-Hunter. There’s no word yet on the scale of the movie, or the plot (the Lundgren version misguidedly brought Aryan Man, sorry, He-Man to Earth for fun and frolics) or which Masters alumni will appear (although if She-Ra doesn’t appear, we’re going to throw our 12” Skeletor out of the window).

Woo faces a number of problems immediately: 1) Though the haze of childhood nostalgia (and the odd decent episode in the first season) tells us otherwise, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was actually a rather cynical exercise in flogging toys for Mattel (although Ram-Man was pretty cool), so concocting a serious story might be difficult; and 2) We all know what happened the last time someone tried to remake a Dolph Lundgren movie – The Punisher came along…

Despite all that, though, there’s something strangely exciting about the prospect of seeing Cringer, Castle Greyskull, the Sorceress et al brought to life with a proper budget and more CG than you can shake a stylus at. And with Woo at the helm, the action scenes have a 64.5% chance of making your eyes pop out of your head.

Of course, casting hasn’t yet begun on the project (Chow Yun-fat as Skeletor, anyone?), but pretty much every actor with a six-pack within a ten-mile radius of Hollywood will be in contention for the role. He may not quite fit the role snugly, but the front-runner is probably The Rock, with whom Woo will also soon work on Spy-Hunter, although there might be room for a total unknown. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re off to hit the gym, then Nicky Clarke’s.

Also available on Empire's website, but I'm not sure if you can access it without registering. But by all means, register. Because there's all kinds of cool stuff. There's info on a Kenneth Branagh version of As You Like It (which is good because I miss Branagh Shakespeare).

Anyways, too cool. I wanted to be She-Ra when I was little. Unfortunately, there was a character named Evil-Lynn (like Evelyn, get it. Yeah, I know, I don't think it's funny either). So my mom called me that.