Jared Leto will play Skeletor in a new live-action Masters Of The Universe film.
A reboot of the franchise has been in the works since 2007, but has been stalled multiple times with director and writer changes. The live-action film was first announced as a Netflix project in 2022, with West Side Story‘s Kyle Allen set to star as He-Man.
However, earlier this year Amazon MGM announced their acquisition of the project, enlisting Travis Knight to direct, with Escape Artists and Mattel Films producing. It’s now scheduled for release on June 5 2026.
On Friday (December 20), Leto’s involvement in the film was revealed, with the actor set to take on the role of Skeletor, Eternia’s greatest supervillain.
Alongside Leto, the film stars Nicholas Galitzine as He-Man and Alison Brie as Skeletor’s lieutenant, Evil-Lyn. Other actors on board are House of the Dragon’s Sam C. Wilson as Trap Jaw, Game of Thrones’ Hafthor Bjornsson as Goat Man, Riverdale’s Camila Mendes as He-Man’s companion, Teela, and Idris Elba as Teela’s father, Man-at-Arms.
The original He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe series aired between 1983-85 with 130 episodes, and introduced He-Man and Skeletor from Mattel’s popular toy line. A live-action movie was released in 1987 starring Dolph Lundgren, Frank Langella, and Courteney Cox.
Knight’s live-action remake is independent of Kevin Smith’s Master of Universe animated series for Netflix, which features the voices of Mark Hamill, Lena Headey, Chris Wood, and Sarah Michelle Gellar, and shared its most recent instalment, Masters of the Universe: Revolution, in January this year.
In other Jared Leto news, the actor and musician recently looked back on the financial struggles Thirty Seconds To Mars faced in the early days of their career, and explained that there was a point where they were “millions of dollars in debt”.
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