TRAVIS KNIGHT TALKS SKELETOR & EMBRACING THE SILLINESS IN MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE
With the first trailer garnering over 80million across social media (perhaps even more), the anticipation for the new reboot of Masters Of The Universe is slowly growing with fans and cinema goers, and the first glimpses of He-Man, Skeletor and co have gone down pretty well. This month, Empire Magazine have sat down with the cast for a big on-set visit and director Travis Knight has been talking about the film.
Knight first spoke with Empire about Jared Leto’s Skeletor, the iconic villain of the series and has been talking about him being the embodiment of “toxic masculinity.”
“Skeletor was a really interesting villain,” Knight said, referencing the cartoon version. “He looked cool. He was scary. He was funny. He was insecure. And then of course he had this distinctive voice…I wanted someone to craft their own version of that. Jared approached us because he loves Skeletor and has his own history with the character. He wanted to swing for the fences. And ultimately, we landed on something that I’m really happy with. Skeletor’s kind of the embodiment of toxic masculinity.”
Reportedly, previous versions of the script, through its years in development hell, had Skeletor wearing a golden skull mask rather than the skull look, or indeed the white skull mask version, since in the 1987 film that Frank Langella wore.
“I said, ‘Skeletor has a skull face!.. That’s just the way it is. It’s a living, talking, emoting skull, and that’s that. Don’t mess with perfection.”
He also spoke of the “silliness” of the franchise, especially in the cartoon, and leans into it in the film, calling it a virtue, adding:
“There’s an inherent silliness to it, which we are acknowledging and embracing… I think it’s a virtue, actually. And it’s woven into the script to help some of these things make sense to a modern audience. Like, why would that character have that stupid name? Well, over the course of the movie we show you why.”
Nicholas Galitzine plays He-Man/Prince Adam in the film, as well as Leto, Idris Elba as Man-at-Arms, Camila Mendes as Teela, Alison Brie as Evil-Lyn, Morena Baccarin as The Sorceress, Charlotte Riley as Queen Marlena, James Purefoy as King Randor and Kristen Wiig as the voice of Roboto.
Masters Of The Universe opens in cinemas on June 5th.
2026-02-10T15:31:07Z