He-Man, By the Power of Development Hell (film trailer).

There are films that take a while to get made, and then there’s Masters of the Universe, which appears to have spent the last decade bench-pressing its own production history while shouting motivational slogans at itself.

Yes, Eternia’s favourite loincloth enthusiast is back. After years wandering the wilderness like a particularly well-toned Moses, the new live-action Masters of the Universe is finally stomping towards cinemas in June 2026, powered by Amazon MGM, a suspicious amount of protein powder, and what one assumes is a legally binding oath sworn upon Castle Grayskull itself.

This time around, Nicholas Galitzine dons the bob haircut of destiny as Prince Adam, a man who begins life on Earth as a fairly normal chap before realising he’s actually intergalactic royalty with access to a sword that doubles as a cosmic Wi-Fi router. One firmware update later and he becomes He-Man, the most powerful man in the universe, or at least the most likely to cause structural damage simply by flexing.

Naturally, no heroic glow-up is complete without a villain who looks like Halloween got ideas above its station. Enter Jared Leto as Skeletor, a sorcerer with ambitions, cheekbones (well… formerly), and what we can only assume is a truly dreadful skincare routine. If his plan involves conquering the universe via Castle Grayskull, one suspects he’s at least read the instruction manual, which already puts him ahead of most cinematic dark lords.

Backing them up is a cast list that reads like a particularly competitive Comic-Con pub quiz team. Idris Elba brings gravitas as Man-At-Arms, Alison Brie leans into the dark arts as Evil-Lyn, and Morena Baccarin turns up as the Sorceress, presumably the only person on Eternia who knows where anything is kept. Meanwhile, Kristen Wiig voices Roboto, suggesting that even the machines on Eternia have better comic timing than most humans.

The plot, intriguingly, leans into the classic “lost prince on Earth” routine. Young Adam is whisked away from a war-torn Eternia and grows up blissfully unaware of his destiny, which is frankly relatable for anyone who’s ever ignored their LinkedIn notifications. Twenty years later, he’s dragged back into cosmic family drama, handed a sword, and told to save existence. No pressure.

Behind the scenes, the film’s journey has been less a straight line and more a drunken zigzag through Hollywood’s back alleys. Directors have come and gone like guests at a particularly chaotic dinner party. Scripts have been written, rewritten, discarded, resurrected, and possibly used as coasters. At one point Netflix threw £30 million at it and then quietly backed away like someone who’s just realised they’ve ordered too much takeaway.

And yet here we are. Filmed in London, no less, which means somewhere in the capital there are probably baffled commuters who briefly shared a bus with a man dressed as Fisto.

Visually, expectations are high. With Industrial Light & Magic and friends handling effects, Eternia should look less like a 1980s toy catalogue exploded and more like a fully realised fantasy world. Whether it keeps the gloriously bonkers charm of the original cartoon or opts for something moodier and more “serious epic” remains to be seen. Either way, somewhere a producer is desperately trying to balance nostalgia with the modern urge to explain absolutely everything.

Here at SFcrowsnest magazine, there’s a certain fondness for a franchise that never quite gave up, no matter how many times it was shoved back into the toy box. If nothing else, Masters of the Universe arriving at last feels like a minor miracle, the cinematic equivalent of finally finding that missing action figure down the back of the sofa, slightly dusty but still ready for battle.

The real question is whether audiences will embrace He-Man’s return or politely nod before going back to streaming something with fewer swords and more existential dread. Either way, come June, someone somewhere will raise a glowing blade to the sky and shout the immortal line.

And if the cinema speakers don’t rattle when that happens, frankly, what are we even doing here?