15 Awesome Actors For The He-Man Movie
By the power of casting, we have the He-Man line-up!
Man-At-Arms - Tom Hardy
The Character: Otherwise known as Duncan, Man-At-Arms is one of the three people who know He-Man's secret identity, and is one of the primary characters in the show.
Despite being built like a Grayskull outhouse, Man-At-Arms is peaceful by nature, preferring to talk rather than fight. With that in mind, we're not entirely sure how he became known as 'Heroic Master Of Weapons.'
But that's mainly because we don't know many pacifists who spend their spare time collecting clubs with spikes in them.
The Actor: Tom Hardy's already shown he can bulk up to Man-At-Arms levels as Bronson and Bane, and he possesses the soulful eyes and sensitive delivery required to put across the character's peaceful nature.
But, perhaps most importantly, he can grow a really impressive mustache.
Possible Problems: Hardy's become accustomed to the Nolan approach to filmmaking, and He-Man director John Chu doesn't have quite the back-catalogue that Chris does. Though we're sure the Justin Bieber movie is excellent, it probably isn't as good as Batman Begins .
Teela - Emma Stone
The Character: Despite being the Sorceress' daughter and Prince Adam's main bodyguard, Teela has no idea that the Prince is, in fact, He-Man.
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This could have something to do with the fact she was raised in a bird's nest, or possibly she's just not very observant.
Either way, she's a formidable warrior, with a reckless streak and a mean temper that marks her out as one of the coolest characters on the show.
The Actor: Speaking of cool, Emma Stone is pretty much the coolest actress in Hollywood at the moment, making her the ideal fit for Teela. She's a genuinely brilliant actress, who could bring humour and toughness to the part. The fact she's got very similar hair has almost nothing to do with it.
Possible Problems: Stone's locked into an Amazing Spider-Man sequel contract, so the chances of her hopping aboard a parallel franchise is probably fairly slim.
Beast Man - Gerard Butler
The Character: One of the most instantly recognisable He-Man villains, Beast Man was one of the first eight characters created by Mattel, and one of the first four to be released (along with He-Man, Man-At-Arms and Skeletor).
He has the ability to control animals - except for Cringer / Battle Cat, because that would be too easy - and is often featured using a whip as a weapon.
His backstory is easily the weirdest in the Masters Of The Universe universe; he was a human farmer named Biff Beastman, who was recruited on a space-mission (because if there's one thing astronauts need, it's farm skills), which crash-landed on Eternia.
Once there, he mutated into a large red whatever, and joined Skeletor's gang.
We really hope this story is incorporated into the movie.
The Actor: With a future slate of movies that sound so bad-ass - Hunter Killer , Motor City , Thunder Run , Manhunt , Olympus Has Fallen - their names could easily double as He-Man episodes, Butler certainly has the testosterone the role requires.
All together now: "THIS. IS. SNAKE MOUNTAIN!"
Possible Problems: We're not sure if Butler has the ability to put across the weird subordinate side of the Beast Man character, who sometimes appeared to deliberately mess up missions, apparently because he got a strange kick from being told off by Skeletor.
We just don't see King Leonidas enjoying begging for forgiveness after being called a fool for the fiftieth time.
Skeletor - Cillian Murphy
The Character: Lord of Destruction and ruler of Snake Mountain, Skeletor is one of the greatest villains in TV history.
Skeletor's absolutely obsessed with gaining access to Castle Grayskull, mainly because it'll give him enough power to conquer the universe, but possibly also because there's only one thing cooler than living in a mountain, and that's living in a castle.
The Actor: We're going to refuse the calls to cast Nicolas Cage based on his ability to have a skull-head in Ghost Rider , and go for Cillian Murphy, who appears to have a skull-head in everything.
He's also got the ability to convey the level of creepy menace required for the part, as anyone who's seen Red Eye will attest.
And we've got a feeling he'll be able to get the voice right, too. It shouldn't be too hard, it's essentially the sound of an angry nan.
Possible Problems: Murphy may be all villained-out after his turn as Scarecrow in the Batman films. We think he's going to be doing smaller, passion projects for the foreseeable future.
He-Man - Chris Hemsworth
The Character: Basically, He-Man is Adam, the prince of Eternia, who gains "fabulous secret powers" involving a magic sword that turns him into a topless warrior who looks like Conan The Barbarian with Patricia Arquette's hair.
He-Man is amazing and we'll fight anyone who says otherwise.
The Actor: This is a relatively difficult role to cast, as you need to find someone who can balance playing the massively buff and brave He-Man, with playing massively buff and slightly less brave Prince Adam.
Chris Hemsworth has proven himself to be more than capable at doing the superhero stuff in the likes of Avengers and Thor . And we reckon Cabin In The Woods showed that he could pull off Prince Adam.
Possible Problems: Possibly Hemsworth feels he's paid his cartoon franchise dues by appearing in the Thor films. But he would be wrong, because the two franchises couldn't be more different. One involves a muscly blond man gaining power from a big weapon. The other involves… Wait, we'll get back to you.
Sam Ashurst is a London-based film maker, journalist, and podcast host. He's the director of Frankenstein's Creature, A Little More Flesh + A Little More Flesh 2, and co-hosts the Arrow Podcast. His words have appeared on HuffPost, MSN, The Independent, Yahoo, Cosmopolitan, and many more, as well as of course for us here at GamesRadar+.