He-Man: The Movie

According to MovieHole, Fox2000 has given the movie rights back to Mattel.

Executive Producer Rodney Ferrell (“Flicka”), of Fox2000 pics, tells Moviehole that they’ve just literally just wiped their hands clean of the property.

“This was a project set up at Fox”, begins Ferrell, “but in the recent months we gave the project back to Mattel and are no longer involved”.

It may still be possible that Woo and Mattel are interested in this project, but the current incarnation under development by Fox is now no longer to be.

According to this report, the movie isn’t lost forever, but it has lost some steam with Woo.

“John is attached, but the project isn’t a priority or high on his radar. Essentially, [he] lost enthusiasm”, the source tells MTV.

Though there is still hope:

The one thing suggesting that the film is still going ahead though is the report that Mattel are in “active” talks with Lions Rock about the film – indicating that not everyone has lost zeal in the project.

The article also mentions some possible people that were contacted to play the lead role, including Paul Walker, Chris Showerman, and Matthew Davis.

IMDB is now showing a release date of 2008, and, interesting enough, no longer credits John Woo as Director. Though Adam Rifkin is still listed as the writer. Taking a look at the more detailed information, Woo is still listed as an executive producer, along with Rodney Ferrel.

imdb board post suggests that he-man.org has confirmed this movie isn’t happening:

It is very confirmed from he-man.org that this movie isn’t happening. There is hope that one day it will happen, but it won’t come out in the next few years. If it does happen, it will come out in 2010 or 2011.

this is posted with no reference link, and searches of the last 6 months of archives on he-man.org show no such confirmation.

this news post has a little more detail:

Just got back from karate practice. A guy at my xxxx, xxxx, is a casting agent. He was doing some casting for John Woo’s U.S arm last year – something called “Spy Hunter” and a film based on the “He-Man” comics. Anyway, just wanted to let you know that – well, he says – those films are not getting up “anytime soon”, because 1) the studio got cold feet on both 2) Woo has gone onto other projects.

This story reports on rumors that the role of She-Ra may be played by Jennifer Garner. This report also casts doubt on Jason Lewis being He-Man.

Yet another report says the following:

UPDATE: John Glover “knows nothing about” himself playing Skeletor, so we’re assuming this one is just a fan wish. Though, he WOULD be a good choice…

A couple other sites say that Latino Review got a scoop on The Rock playing He-Man. These rumors appear to date back to April 2005. Not much else to back it up, though, other than The Rock playing a part in John Woo’s other current project, Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run.

And slightly older news, my guess is this is the source of the rumors of Nicholas Cage playing Skeletor.