{"id":453159,"date":"2026-02-06T20:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T20:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/453159\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T20:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T20:46:12","slug":"skeletor-is-the-embodiment-of-toxic-masculinity-says-travis-knight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/453159\/","title":{"rendered":"Skeletor Is \u2018The Embodiment Of Toxic Masculinity\u2019, Says Travis Knight"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the moment he hit toy shelves, Skeletor proved an instant classic villain. Just as He-Man is a cartoonish extreme of heroism (look at those massive muscles!), his nemesis Skeletor is a cartoonish extreme of evil: a cackling skull in a big purple hood. Enough said. And in his Masters Of The Universe movie<\/a>, director Travis Knight is playing it straight \u2013 his Skeletor is a faithful recreation of the original character, right down to the eye sockets.<\/p>\n

\u201cSkeletor was a really interesting villain,\u201d Knight tells Empire of the original cartoon incarnation. \u201cHe looked cool. He was scary. He was funny. He was insecure. And then of course he had this distinctive voice.\u201d All of which offered plenty for Jared Leto to work from, as the performer anchoring the role in Knight\u2019s Masters Of The Universe<\/a>. \u201cI wanted someone to craft their own version of that,\u201d the director explains. \u201cJared approached us, because he loves Skeletor and has his own history with the character. He wanted to swing for the fences. And ultimately we landed on something that I\u2019m really happy with. Skeletor\u2019s kind of the embodiment of toxic masculinity.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t always going to be this way. A Masters Of The Universe reboot has been in the running for years, and previous iterations of the screenplay had Skeletor\u2019s visage as a golden skull mask. \u201cI said, \u2018Fuck that shit. Skeletor has a skull face,\u2019\u201d Knight declares. \u201cThat\u2019s just the way it is. It\u2019s a living, talking, emoting skull, and that\u2019s that.\u201d Don\u2019t mess with perfection.<\/p>\n

\"Empire<\/p>\n

Read Empire\u2019s full Masters Of The Universe feature \u2013 going on set with director Travis Knight and his cast \u2013 in the April 2026 issue<\/a>, on sale Thursday February 12. Pre-order a copy online here<\/a>. Masters Of The Universe comes to UK cinemas from June 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From the moment he hit toy shelves, Skeletor proved an instant classic villain. Just as He-Man is a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,206],"class_list":{"0":"post-453159","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}