Masters of the Universe (MOTU) will bring the power to theaters on June 5 as it tells the story of how Prince Adam becomes He-Man. But, before then, director and bonafide MOTU nerd Travis Knight made quite the electrifying appearance during CinemaCon 2026. He appeared during Amazon MGM’s special presentation on April 14.
But before that, we were lucky enough to attend a media screening of three scenes from the Masters of the Universe film. And, we spoke to Knight during a roundtable event where he spoke about bringing Snake Mountain and other key Eternia locations to life, a character he wished he could’ve included, setting the film’s specific tone, all things Skeletor, and much more.
Travis Knight REALLY Wanted to Bring Mer-Man Into the Live-Action Masters of the Universe Movie
It’s no secret that this film will have a lot of characters, some of whom are deepcut. That’s what you do when you get to make a movie about a franchise that you grew up loving. But, of course, there’s no way to get everything that you want because, well, you have a specific story to tell and a limited amount of time to do so. Knight joked that at one point he felt like he was being a “ridiculously responsible fanboy” instead of a filmmaker, so he had to shift his focus.
“You only have so much time to tell the story that you want to tell and it does have to be focused,” said Knight. “I believe in the adage of the trimmer, meaning you want to have a really kind of focused point of view on the story. You’re trying to tell them what the emotional content is and then everything is built around that. And so because this really was Adam’s story, it meant that all the other things had to be in service of his story. You find nuance, you find death, you find complexity in all those other characters, but the more people, the more characters you stack in there, the less you can do with them.”
But that didn’t mean a few of his favorites didn’t find their way into this story. He notes that Ram Man, Fisteau, and Mechanic are in the live-action Masters of the Universe film, but also laments that Mer-Man didn’t make the cut.
“I couldn’t make it work, but if you look in the background, my prosthetics guy did me a solid,” he reveals. “If you look in the background, there’s a dude who looks exactly like Mer-Man. There are a few of those things in there just because we weren’t able to properly get them in the movie, but for the keen-eyed fan, they’ll see some cool stuff back there.”
Masters of the Universe’s Exciting Locations: Eternos, Castle Grayskull, Snake Mountain
Of course, epic characters like Teela, Man-At-Arms, and He-Man’s stories will take fans to several locations from our (not-as-cool) Planet Earth to epic locations across Eternia. Famed locales from the franchise like the city of Eternos itself, Castle Grayskull, and Snake Mountain were ripe for exploration on the big screen. That’s certainly no easy task to pull off for a filmmaker and production designer, but Knight had the right guy to lead this charge.
“I worked with the most extraordinary production designer, Guy Dyaz, and I met him really early. He was the first production head that I hired and, like me, he grew up with Masters, so he knew it, he loved it, and we were able to completely geek out of all those sorts of things,” Knight revealed. “I let him kind of just follow his own muse for a while and he came up with some designs for Snake Mountain that were absolutely bananas. I was like, ‘No, we’re not doing that shit. We’re doing something that looks like Snake Mountain.’
So ultimately we have this incredible version of Snake Mountain that’s beautiful. He designed this incredible throne room, which is where that fight that we saw in that little montage takes place. That sequence was incredibly difficult to shoot. We did that over a series of weeks.”
Knight on Balancing Camp and Emotional Gravitas in Masters of the Universe
When most people think about He-Man and the Masters of the Universe world, they usually think about the 1980s animated series. And that’s for good reason. It is the foundation of all the adaptations that have come forth since, and well known for its campy tone and storytelling. That’s what Knight grew up watching and he knew exactly what tone he wanted to set for this film. However, he also wanted to make sure that the emotional storytelling foundations were set to craft a compelling adventure.
“I knew what this movie needed to be and the tone was probably the most critical thing to get right because, in my experience, Masters of the Universe is something that is fun, it’s playful… There are aspects of it that are utterly ridiculous and silly and yet I loved it when I was a kid and I still love it. We took the world seriously, even though some aspects of it are patently ridiculous.”
He continued by touching on the film’s emotional aspects and the myriad of emotions that viewers will experience in theaters. “ I hope people feel things when they watch the movie. I certainly do when I watch it. There is a really, I think, potent emotional story that we’re telling about Adam. And yet we’re living in a world where it’s fun, it’s playful, it’s cheeky, it’s irreverent, so there’s a sincerity and a real heart to the movie. And then I wanted to make sure that when we actually get into the action that it’s high octane action. That is a tricky needle to thread to try to balance all those things together so you’re not getting tonal whiplash. But I’m really pleased that we arrived at a place where all these various things can happen and it feels kind of holy and wholly consistent.”
Jared Leto’s Live-Action Skeletor Is Funny Yet Absolutely Menacing, And He Looks Cool
While we love a hero’s journey, it cannot happen with a proper antagonist. And there are few villains who are more culturally known than Skeletor. He’s a part of the pop culture zeitgeist, even with younger generations who know nothing about Masters of the Universe. That’s thanks to a zillion memes of him being chaotic and ridiculous. And, for those of us who know him, we love the cackling energy he brings every single time, even though it always ends in defeat. Well, almost always. He’s going to get a win in Travis Knight’s MOTU film, which we saw prior to the roundtable interview. And this Skeletor, while still unintentionally hilarious, is certainly more menacing than previous versions.
“Skeletor for me was one of the most iconic villains of the ‘80s and there were a variety of reasons why,” Knight told us. “I think most villains of that time looked cool or they were scary or funny or they were intimidating. A skeleton was all of those things, and so it’s a really interesting combination of flavors. Now the origin of the Alan Oppenheimer voice was that they made this cartoon for kids and [Skeletor] looked scary, so they needed to find a voice that was not scary. And so they purposely came up with this silly comical nasal voice that took the edge off of a skull faced character. When I was speaking with Jared [Leto], we recognized that we wanted to honor all those aspects, including a distinctive voice and an interesting laugh, but we did not want to engage in mimicry. We did not want it to be him doing an impression of Alan Oppenheimer.”
Bringing Skeletor’s Voice to Life in a New Way
The vocal choice that the duo made took a while to discover, but it absolutely works in so many ways. It fits the persona of a character who wants to shine but never quite gets the fanfare that his cold heart (if he even has one) desires.
“I think it has menace, it has theatricality, which is always a part of Skeletor,” Knight said about Jared Leto’s vocal choice. “He was always putting on a show and then disappointed when he didn’t get the response that he wanted. Ultimately, he’s a very insecure man and that becomes a part of his character. He’s a power hungry man who’s deeply insecure and that was a fun thing to kind of dive into and figure out how we could dramatize that in that character. He is fun. He’s incredibly fun to watch. He’s scary. He’s horrible, but he’s really, really entertaining.”
Skeletor’s Sinewy Suit in MOTU
In case you hadn’t noticed yet, Skeletor’s costume is fire, as is everyone’s in this film. There are CGI elements that bring the character to life, of course, but it was always Knight’s intention to have an actor in a muscle-bound suit for believability and practicality. Knight gave props to the leader of his prosthetics team, Barry Gower, who has worked on Game of Thrones and The Last of Us, among other major projects. And yes, Gower is also a He-Man fan.
“Barry had to try to figure out how he could make a suit that felt like it was kind of filleted skin basically,” he said. “It was almost as if we removed the skin of this character and saw the muscle and the sinew underneath, and they did such an extraordinary job in the sculpting and the painting. They had developed new techniques for it, and it required incredible maintenance. They had to build these things so it moved in the right way because it is essentially just a compressed muscle suit, but our bodies, our muscles move in a certain way. So to figure out how it can do all of those things and not be constricting. There’s so many of these muscle suits, the actor has a hard time moving. So this thing had to be lightweight, it had to be flexible, and Skeletor had to look powerful. It was a struggle and I felt bad for Jared wearing it [laughs]. I felt bad for his stunt double scene wearing it, but ultimately I think it looks amazing.”
What We Can Expect In a Masters of the Universe Sequel (If It Happens)
There’s no official word on whether Travis Knight will get a chance to do a Masters of the Universe sequel or not. We certainly hope so, even before seeing the first movie in its entirety. It’s awesome to see actual nerds making things for fellow nerds, ya know? If it does happen, Knight is already thinking about what’s next.
“I think about what happens next for Adam,” Knight wonders. “Where does the next stage of his life take him? Now that he’s properly He-Man, what does that mean? And at the essence of it is relationships. It’s always about relationships for me. How do those relationships evolve moving forward? Ultimately this stuff is not in our hands. So as much as we would like to tell more of these stories, if the world doesn’t want them, we won’t tell them. But if the world demands more of them, we’d be very lucky to be able to tell more stories in this universe.”
Masters of the Universe hits theaters on June 5.