With a new Masters of the Universe movie headed our way in 2019, we revisit the past.
This coming August (the 7th, to be exact) marks the 30th anniversary of director Gary Goddard’s Masters of the Universe, the first (and only) live-action adaptation of Mattel’s popular toy line to date. The Cannon Films adaptation is infamous for a number of reasons, most notably due to its underwhelming box office performance. Made on a budget of $22 million, the 1987 film made just $17 million at the box office; it flopped so hard that it helped put an end to Cannon Films entirely, while also killing the Masters of the Universe franchise before it ever really had a chance.
A post-credits tease promised a sequel. Of course, it never came.
Not only did the film fail to capitalize on the massive success of the toy line, but Masters of the Universe was also panned by most critics at the time. Of course, thirty years later, many fans have come to embrace the corny charms of the Dolph Lundgren-starring toys-to-film adaptation; personally speaking, it was one of my favorite childhood films and remains a favorite to this day.
I have watched Masters of the Universe more times than any other movie, and I am so fascinated by the behind the scenes trials and tribulations that I often head deep down internet rabbit holes in the hopes of uncovering new tidbits of information. Okay, so my love for the film borders on obsession; I know, by heart, the name of the kid who won a freakin’ walk-on role in a contest!
His name is Richard Szponder and he played “Pigboy.”
It’s well known that the film’s low budget resulted in Masters of the Universe not quite being what it was originally intended to be – budget constraints led to the action being set mostly on Earth, while toy character Orko had to be replaced by new character Gwildor. But though the low budget may be evident in the visual effects, you wouldn’t know it looking at the makeup effects.
The various characters that inhabit Goddard’s Masters of the Universe were designed by production artist William Stout, whose name should be familiar to fans of The Return of the Living Dead. Stout designed iconic zombie Tarman for the 1985 horror-comedy, and he also worked on films like The Hitcher, Pan’s Labyrinth, and The Mist. Not only was Stout tasked with turning Mattel’s colorful toys into fully realized characters, but he also designed, along with fellow artists such as Moebius, a handful of brand new characters that were created specifically for the film.
In the live-action world, Skeletor’s henchmen included Beast Man, Karg and Saurod, all of whom (including Skeletor) were designed by Stout. Makeup effects legend Michael Westmore (Syfy’s “Face Off”) was then brought in to bring Stout’s designs to life, but what’s interesting is that Westmore himself was not actually on set. Story goes that since Masters of the Universe was a non-union production and Westmore was a member of the union, he was only hired by Cannon to design the makeup and supply the prosthetics; he wasn’t, however, allowed to be on the set.
It was artists Todd McIntosh, Robin Beauchesne and June Haymore-Pipkin who actually applied Westmore’s appliances to the actors and handled the final paint jobs. Budgetary issues cropped up in the makeup room, as they did throughout the entire production, but the team of Stout, Westmore, McIntosh, Beauchesne and Haymore-Pipkin proved to be just what the movie needed.
The incredible Skeletor makeup worn by Frank Langella is of course one of the standout highlights of Masters of the Universe, as is Langella’s better-than-required performance. Westmore and the team turned a yellow-faced cartoon character into a genuinely imposing movie villain, and the appliances worn by Langella still hold up as being incredibly impressive.
Henchmen Karg (Robert Towers) and Saurod (Pons Maar) were both created for the movie. Karg, a half-human, half-bat creature with a nightmarish head of white hair, cuts an imposing figure despite being a mostly ineffectual character, while the lizard-like Saurod, with his inflating throat, proved to be such a cool design that Mattel ended up including him in the Masters toy line.
And then there’s Beast Man, an iconic toy line character who was played by Tony Carroll. Again, the task was to reinvision a children’s toy and turn it into a movie monster, and the team of artists knocked it out of the park. Covered in fur and wearing samurai-like armor, the film’s Beast Man is an almost werewolf-like monster that could very well be the star of his own horror movie.
Of course, the most beloved character from the live-action Masters of the Universe is the pint-sized comic relief known as Gwildor. Another character not present in the toy line or cartoon, Gwildor was portrayed by the late Billy Barty, whose performance is second only to Langella’s as the film’s best. Equally brilliant is the makeup, which is nothing short of iconic.
One could argue that Masters of the Universe probably deserved a “Best Makeup” nomination at the ’88 Academy Awards. You can say what you want about the film, which is undeniably cheesetastic, but one thing you can’t take away from Goddard’s failed vision is that the character designs, makeup effects and even costuming were incredibly on point. In a decade where the horror genre was giving us some of the coolest movie monsters of all time, Masters gave those films a run for their money, and that’s one of the big reasons I look back so fondly on it.
The movie may not hold up, but it proves that good monster makeup is truly timeless.
