The director was not going to make the film without the Skeletor we know and love.<\/b>
\nThe world is built on some very simple truths. The sky is blue. Grass is green. And Skeletor from Masters of the Universe has a talking skull for a face. Period.
That\u2019s the thinking of Travis Knight, at least. He\u2019s the director of the upcoming Masters of the Universe film, and in a new interview, he revealed that previous versions of the film before he came on took a different approach to the franchise\u2019s most famous villain. Instead of a white, talking skull, it was a person with a gold skull mask. \u201cI said, \u2018Fuck that shit‘,\u201d Knight told Empire Magazine. \u2018Skeletor has a skull face.\u2019 That\u2019s just the way it is. It\u2019s a living, talking, emoting skull, and that\u2019s that.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s that,\u201d indeed. Knight\u2019s adherence to the iconic look of Skeletor was just one of the specific choices he made regarding the character. The other was to let actor Jared Leto, who approached Knight about the role, not the other way around, give his own take on him. \u201cSkeletor was a really interesting villain,\u201d Knight said. \u201cHe 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.\u201d
Which Leto did. \u201cJared approached us, because he loves Skeletor and has his own history with the character,\u201d Knight said. \u201cHe wanted to swing for the fences. And ultimately, we landed on something that I\u2019m really happy with. Skeletor\u2019s kind of the embodiment of toxic masculinity.\u201d
With everything we\u2019ve heard and read about Leto, his playing \u201cthe embodiment of toxic masculinity\u201d is arguably scarier than a superpowered talking skeleton. What was he like on set? We don\u2019t even want to think about it.
Leto co-stars along with Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Adam\/He-Man, Camila Mendes as Teela, Idris Elba as Man-at-Arms, and Alison Brie as Evil-Lyn when Masters of the Universe comes to theaters June 5.<\/p>\n