Nee Brothers Tease Kyle Allen’s He-Man and Discuss How ‘Lost City’ Prepared Them for ‘Masters of the Universe’
By Sasha Urban
Although they just completed their visit to the “Lost City,” Adam and Aaron Nee are quickly gearing up for a trip to the planet Eternia.
Following years of speculation about a “Masters of the Universe” reboot, which hasn’t had a live-action film since 1987, the Nee brothers were announced as the film’s directors four years ago. Now, they’re finally preparing to begin shooting the Mattel Studios and Netflix film this summer, with “West Side Story’s” Kyle Allen attached in the role of He-Man. Speaking to Variety on Monday at the premiere of their film “The Lost City” at the Regency Village Theatre in L.A., the Nee brothers teased what fans can expect from Allen in the role.
“He has such incredible emotional vulnerability, he’s just an amazing dramatic actor, but he’s funny like Michael J. Fox,” Adam said. “Like he has this special thing, this energy that is very rare in an actor. Then you add on top of that, he is trained in like all forms of martial arts, he is a swordsman, he does parkour, he can do everything, so the amount of Jackie Chan-style crazy action stuff we’re gonna be able to do in this movie is gonna blow people away.”
The pair also discussed how filming “The Lost City,” their most star-studded project yet, prepared them to take on the challenge of rebooting a beloved franchise like “Masters,” which they co-wrote with David Callaham.
“In terms of ‘Lost City’ helping to pave the way for ‘Masters of the Universe,’ it was very important to us that with ‘Masters of the Universe’ we hold onto what that was for us as kids,” Aaron said. “That ‘Masters of the Universe’ property and those toys for us as kids, it wasn’t silly to us or absurd to us, it had a depth and a meaning to it.”
Aaron continued, “But what we don’t want to do is lose the fact that it is wild and these are crazy characters and colorful, and that was part of the balancing act that we were trying to do with ‘Lost City,’ too, is hold onto something that has a core human empathy to it and yet isn’t afraid to have fun and get crazy and have wild things happen and have wild characters.”
The brothers also discussed what first drew them to “The Lost City,” an adventure comedy starring Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum and Daniel Radcliffe that is predicted to earn $20 million or more in its opening weekend.
“For us, our draw to this film was, after being in isolation for the first eight months of COVID, we read this script and it was just that perfect escape,” Adam said. “I think that’s why this film is going to work in the box office, is because it feels like this amazing escape from some of the hard times people are going through right now.”
“It’s the movie that we were longing for,” Aaron added. “We realized, ‘Oh, thats a void in our lives,’ this thing that you can go to with your friends and just listen to each other laugh and escape onto this adventure and just for a moment forget all of the challenges that we’ve been going through globally.”