Not everything comes together sadly in the world of film and design.
Creature designer and former ILM artist Carlos Huante (Alien: Covenant, Prometheus) continued to speak with HN Entertainment’s Nicholas Whitcomb about his initial excitement to return to the world of He-Man and The Masters of The Universe after starting out as a runner at Filmation for that original He-Man cartoon series. He was then enlisted by then writer-director David S. Goyer to work on a brand new incarnation of a feature film, you might have seen production photos that Goyer had been posting on Instagram before exiting the project, which would lead to Huante’s exit too.
Carlos when on to explain that David’s vision for the film was too grand and the studio not budging on the budget was a large contributing factor to why Goyer left. He also compared Goyer’s script to The Lord of The Rings and suggested it could have been broken up into three movies.
HN: One thing I was really excited about that you were involved with… the He-Man movie that David S. Goyer was working on at the time, I was really excited about that. I love He-Man and the Masters of The Universe.
HUANTE: “Like I said, that [original He-Man cartoon] was my first professional job. I was a runner there. My life drawing instructor worked there at Filmation. I visited him there for lunch and left there with a job as a runner…I did get into the industry that way and discovered what was available for me to work in, so He-Man is kind of my foundation. Well, it was my pathway into this industry.”
“When they called me to work on the film I was very happy. It was kind of like the call I got from Ridley, to work on Prometheus in that it was a revisit to my childhood and my beginnings so to speak. So with He-Man, now because it has this history with me I was very excited. I know these characters really well and I was ready to work..and I did. I worked on it for several weeks and the script that Goyer had, he was directing and he wrote the script, was great I actually thought it was really good, which I don’t say that often. This one was fun and it made the world more fantastic than I thought it could go. It felt arty and fantastical at the same time. “
“The director’s script was big and the studio didn’t want to fund that movie and so the director quit…He was great [Goyer] I loved where he was going with that story it was great fun, but once that went away we got let go too.”
“I’m not going to talk too much about it [in great detail], I know they’re making it still but I’ll tell you it was… just the story of Greyskull and that sort of thing and there was some really cool stuff in there. I don’t think they’re gonna make that version. I know they’re not going to, it was like a Lord of The Rings film, it was huge! And there was all kinds of stuff in there, you could have divided up that script into three movies and it would have worked. That’s how big it was. I would have loved to have spent a lot of time on that one. It was a more fantastic version of Lord of The Rings, is what I’ll say. It’s a more colorful and fantastical version of Lord of The Rings, but it felt as real as Lord of The Rings. It was very real but very far-out. It was a final return to science fiction fantasy where we’ve only had one, Star Wars.”
“They screwed-up by not allowing Goyer to make it in my opinion. it was a slam-dunk money maker.”
The Masters of The Universe movie is currently in the hands of the Nee Brothers, who will be directing with recent news that Iron Man screenwriters Art Marcum and Matt Holloway are polishing a draft of the script.
We’ll be continuing to post segments from our interview, keep an eye out.
Please take a moment to follow Carlos Huante at his two Instagram accounts @carlos_huante and @galleryanatom to get a wonderful glimpse into the world of Carlos as he regularly posts his stunning artwork there.
