Masters of the Universe loses director David S. Goyer

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Thirty-two years after the first attempt at making a live action movie based on the MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE toy line, a long-in-development reboot is closer to happening than ever before. Two months ago, it was announced that David S. Goyer would be writing and directing the film for a December 18, 2019 release. The project has now hit a bit of a speed bump on the way to that release date, but I find this to be good news: Goyer has had to vacate the director's chair because of other commitments; specifically, he's too busy working on a mini-series adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation sci-fi trilogy to be able to direct MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE at the same time.

While Goyer remains attached to the project as executive producer and screenwriter, Sony Pictures needs to find another director. 

Goyer deciding not to direct the film is good news to me because, while he has written some good movies, his sensibilities usually need to be filtered through a different filmmaker to get good results. See how Stephen Norrington's BLADE and Guillermo del Toro's BLADE II turned out compared to Goyer's own BLADE: TRINITY.

Whoever signs on to shepherd MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE the rest of the way to the screen will be at least the fifth director to be involved with this project. Goyer was preceded by John Stevenson, Jon M. Chu, and McG.

Here's hoping the final director will be an inspired choice, because the goal here is to make a better, more accurate film than '87's MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE… which is pretty cool in its own right (especially with a boost of nostalgia).