Masters of the Universe CinemaCon Footage Breakdown

Amazon MGM Studios and Mattel invited the press to screen select footage from Masters of the Universe ahead of their CinemaCon presentation. The film’s director, Travis Knight, was joined by stars Nicholas Galitzine (He-Man) and Camila Mendes (Teela) to introduce three scenes from the film that amounted to roughly 20 minutes of footage. (Minor spoilers follow.)

“If you watch the Filmation cartoon, you know that every episode, Skeletor had some grand designs for power. He was going to do some kind of scheme. He’s going to get his ass kicked, and then he’s going to promise to return next week. Lather, rinse, repeat, the same thing every time. And we wondered what would happen if he actually won. And that’s essentially how we start our movie,” Knight explained before the footage rolled.

The first sequence showed Skeletor’s (Jared Leto) forces breaching the walls of the capital city, Eternos. Duncan/Man-at-Arms (Idris Elba) leads King Randor (James Purefoy), Queen Marlena (Charlotte Riley), and their young son, Prince Adam, through the halls of the Royal Palace in search of a safe escape route.

Skeletor’s “wizard of weapons,” Trap Jaw, and some henchmen find them. Man-at-Arms points the royal family down a side passageway while he takes on Trap Jaw and his goons. Man-at-Arms has the upper hand of Trap Jaw … until he doesn’t.

Skeletor and his horde soon surround the royal family. Skeletor lets Marlena and Adam run away as his troops attack and seize Randor. Evil-Lyn (Alison Brie) arrives as Randor is hauled away. Skeletor delivers a victorious, supervillain monologue, his fist raised to the heavens – but none of his crew know how to respond. That irks Skeletor, who explains to Evil-Lyn that they’re supposed to react when he hits the crescendo of his big speech.

“We’re going to jump ahead 15 years to later in the movie, where we find Adam, who’s now grown up on Earth. They sent him to Earth to protect him, but he lost his sword along the way. He spent the last 15 years trying to find the sword. He finally does, and then he immediately gets arrested,” Knight explained in his set-up to the second sequence.

This scene showed Adam in the back of a police car, which is stuck in traffic on a highway overpass. Suddenly, people start fleeing their cars, escaping from some threat just behind them. The two cops leave Adam in the squad car while they go to investigate. Then Adam sees Beast Man charging across the tops of vehicles, heading right for him.

Adam grabs his Power Sword from the front seat and takes cover as Beast Man lands on the roof of the cop car. Beast Man eventually tosses Adam off the overpass onto the street below, where he proceeds to beat the hell out of him. Just as it looks like that’s it for Adam, Beast Man gets blasted by Teela, whom Adam is shocked to see. She’s come to bring him home to Eternia.

The third and final scene showed Adam, Teela, and Man-at-Arms on a bridge in Eternia, staving off an attack by Trap Jaw and his goons. Adam tries to use the conflict resolution skills he learned at his office job on Earth, but Trap Jaw ain’t having it. Trap Jaw is beating the hell out of Adam when, at the urging of his friends to “use the sword”, the Sorceress (Morena Baccarin) appears overhead to remind Adam of his incantation.

“By the power of Grayskull,” Adam begins to say as he lifts his Power Sword. Lightning starts crackling in the sky above, causing Trap Jaw and the others to react. Adam’s body begins to levitate, his clothes are magically replaced by gladiatorial armor as his body transforms into the musclebound He-Man and he declares, “I have the power!!!” He-Man proceeds to get the upper hand against Trap Jaw. The footage presentation ended with a sizzle reel, the same one screened at the studio’s CinemaCon panel.

When it came to actually saying those iconic He-Man lines, Nicholas Galitzine recalled his thinking going into filming that scene:

“It’s obviously one of those things that you see on the schedule, and you kind of go, ‘Oh shit, that’s the big scene.’ And I kind of was very conflicted in my mind as to whether I wanted to rehearse it or really just feel it on the day, which was actually something that I landed on because, as Travis says, it was emotional for him. It was emotional for me. This is someone who’s been put down their entire lives and been told by his teachers when he arrived on Earth that he’s crazy, and this moment, this incantation, is just completely empowering him and vindicating his life of struggles. And I didn’t want to have something so prepared in my mind. I wanted it to feel really from my core and my gut.”

Masters of the Universe Movie Images