It’s true, Travis Knight may not have the same level of recognition as Spielberg, Nolan, or Tarantino. However, for over 10 years, he has quietly and stealthily become one of the strongest storytellers in cinema today. With his upcoming adaptation of Masters of the Universe hitting theaters June 5, and his next stop-motion animated Laika masterpiece Wildwood already amassing over 100M views for its teaser trailer in a single week, it’s beginning to look like Knight’s talents won’t be overlooked for much longer.
While it’s easy to ignore the contributions of a filmmaker and producer predominantly operating out of an independent animation studio in a landscape heavily biased against animation, Knight’s Laika Studios has produced some of the most uniquely underrated and mature examples of handcrafted storytelling on film from 2009’s Coraline to 2016’s Kubo and the Two Strings, and this October’s Wildwood. Additionally, the director managed to bring a surprising level of acclaim to the Transformers franchise, with the series’ strongest live action film, Bumblebee back in 2018. Now, with Knight’s next adaptation, Masters of the Universe, coming out, The Nerds of Color, along with other select members of the press, were invited to an intimate conversation with Knight at CinemaCon to dissect what it took to finally bring the iconic battle between He-Man and Skeletor to the big screen.
Here’s what Knight had to say about Masters of the Universe:
When asked what the Masters of the Universe franchise meant to him, Knight replied, “Well, it’s a huge part of my childhood. I distinctly remember when I was first exposed to it, and it was so different from anything I’d ever seen before. I was a huge Star Wars fan, as every right-thinking person was at that time. That was my big introduction to sci-fi and that blend of sci-fi and fantasy. But Masters of the Universe was all of that, while also being weird and psychedelic and strange and playful. There was an aspect to it that felt like it shouldn’t exist. It felt like someone took a bunch of ideas, threw them in a blender, and just spewed them out — and I was delighted by all of it.”
As a child of the ‘80s, Knight continued saying, “I had the toys. I read the little mini-comics. When the cartoon came out the next year, I loved it. I remember rushing home after school to watch He-Man and the She-Ra Power Hour. I watched all of that stuff. And I’ve told people this many times: the greatest Christmas gift I ever received was the Castle Grayskull playset. That was my “Red Ryder BB gun.” That was the peak. I’ve basically been in a steady decline ever since getting the Castle Grayskull playset. But I love this stuff. There’s something funny about toys — about a child’s plaything. People mock that stuff and say, ‘Oh, it’s just molded plastic.’ And of course it is. But I see it with my own kids, and I certainly experienced it as a kid: toys are vessels for our imagination. We pour ourselves into them. They become extensions of us, and we become extensions of them. Anything that’s deeply loved — and a child’s plaything is deeply loved — becomes a part of us. That’s how I felt about Transformers as a kid, and that’s how I felt about He-Man and Masters of the Universe. I deeply loved this stuff, and I’ve carried it with me my whole life.”
Knight was then asked how it felt knowing that there’s going to be a kid whose favorite present this Christmas might be his version of Castle Grayskull. “Oh, don’t put that in my head,” he joked. “It’s funny — I haven’t really thought about that. But I’d be honored if that’s the case for somebody. Ultimately, that’s why we do what we do. We do these things for connection. When I was a kid, the movie that meant the most to me was E.T. I saw it with my mom in a theater when I was around eight years old, and it was the first movie that moved me to tears. It felt like somebody had ripped out my insides and put them on screen — like somebody knew exactly how I felt. Steven Spielberg was nothing like me. We were 30 years apart. But he understood something deeply human and created this portrait of childhood loneliness that connected with me profoundly. I carried that with me. That’s what I’m trying to do when I tell stories. I’m trying to forge an emotional connection with the audience. This is going to sound wanky, but I feel like there’s a sacred contract between a director and the audience. If you give me your time and your attention, I will make it worth your while. I will give you something that matters. That’s how I approach these things. I want to make sure these are emotional experiences. I want to make sure people have a good time. The main things I try to evoke are wonder, laughter, and tears. I want incredible spectacle. I want them to have a good time. And then I want it to mean something. And I want people to be moved by it. So the idea that this movie could become that for some kid somewhere… that would be extraordinary for me.”
Next, we were given the opportunity to ask our first question of Knight. Given that this year, we’re getting two films by Knight (Masters of the Universe and Wildwood), we asked him how he approached working on two incredibly different movies at the same time, while putting his whole heart into both.
“The world just needs more of me,” Knight joked. “It’s tricky. It’s not something I recommend. Each one of these is a full-time job that requires every ounce of your attention. I’ve been working on this movie for about two and a half years, and it’s been an absolute joy. I’ve been working on Wildwood for 16 years. Stop-motion is its own kind of glacial torture. It requires extraordinary discipline, forethought, and organization, because over that period of time things can shift dramatically. That’s why you have to know the emotional epicenter of the story and hold onto it tightly, because it’s very easy for these things to drift over time. With Wildwood, I read the book about 17 years ago when it was still in galley form — it wasn’t even finished yet. We started developing it immediately, but at the time we simply didn’t have the tools or technology to do it justice. Over time, we built those tools. We’ll see if we succeeded when it comes out this fall. With Masters, I don’t have that kind of production history with it, but it has been a part of my life for most of my life. These are two things I care very deeply about. They’re very different, but if you squint, they share the same DNA. I can’t wait for people to see them.”
Knight was then asked about what themes he wanted audiences to take away from Masters of the Universe, such as the idea of masculinity as it derives from characters like He-Man.
“It felt like an opportunity to have a conversation about masculinity in a thoughtful, empathetic way — not in a preachy way,” Knight began. “There are great aspects of masculinity, and there are terrible aspects too. Growing up in a different era, I saw a lot of the latter. I was a sensitive kid, an artistic kid, and I didn’t share the same interests or values as many of my peers. The things I valued weren’t valued by the people around me. But you soak in all of this stuff. Things are very different now, although you’re right; there are certainly… dark storm clouds that kind of threaten taking us into a place that I don’t think is particularly healthy. But I think, at the very least, to be able to have that conversation — to say what it means to be a man. What are the good aspects? What are the aspectes we wish we could improve? Adam’s story reflects that. Eternia, for me, represents ‘80s masculinity — a culture built around power, strength, emotional discipline, and rigid expectations. Adam doesn’t quite fit into that world. But he also grows up in modern America, where empathy, communication, and emotional understanding are valued differently. So what happens when those two worlds collide? You see that in his relationship with his father and with Duncan. Duncan is a good man, but he comes from an earlier era and has strong ideas about what masculinity means… I wanted to approach every perspective with empathy. Nobody is entirely right or entirely wrong. They learn from each other. I wish, culturally, we could do more of that — engage with people thoughtfully and empathetically, try to understand where they’re coming from, and find common ground. We don’t really live in a time where that’s happening to my satisfaction. But the hope is that through telling stories like this, maybe people can think about it in a way that helps them.”
Knight was then asked about the process of casting stars Nicholas Galitzine and Camila Mendes in the lead roles of He-Man and Teela. “Casting is probably the most critical decision you make,” began the director. “Because these people have to embody the story you’re trying to tell. With this movie, I was asking a lot from the actors. Nick and Cami needed to be action heroes, funny, and emotionally grounded. The movie doesn’t work if it doesn’t have heart. Nick was the first person I hired, and he was the most important person to get right. A lot of people think, ‘You’re making a He-Man movie — find the biggest, most muscular guy possible.’ But that wasn’t the point for me. I didn’t need to find a body. I needed to find a soul. Someone who could take the spirit of who this character was and bring it to life in a believable way on screen… Nick could do anything. When audiences see this movie, they’re going to be astonished by his range. Now, he didn’t initially look like He-Man. But to his credit, he transformed himself the hard way. No steroids. No shortcuts. He worked unbelievably hard, and when I saw him months later on set, he looked like a completely different person. With Cami, it was the same thing. She embraced the action training completely — choreography, wirework, all of it. She transformed physically too. But most importantly, both of them have deep empathy underneath everything. That’s their real superpower. Once I found them, I could build the rest of the cast around them.”
Knight was asked about the development of the movie before he became involved. “People have been trying to make a Masters of the Universe movie for 18 years… So this movie is old enough to vote,” he joked. “It’s had a long gestation period. And so when I came aboard, there was nobody attached to it… They’d had so many people attached to it [previously] in terms of screenwriters, and directors, and various actors. But when I came, there was a script that existed that was written by Aaron and Adam Nee and David Callahan. It was really fun, and we held on to some of that stuff. We held on to a bunch of that stuff that I felt like was consistent with the story that we wanted to tell. But ultimately, I needed to be able to shape the movie in a way that was consistent with the emotional story that I wanted to tell. And that’s when I brought on my partner, my creative partner, Chris Butler, who I’ve worked with at Laika for 20 years. And we shaped it together. And so from there, that was the foundation, and then everything came out of that, including the actors who, you know, we found over the course of this process.”
We then got the opportunity to ask another question, and this time we asked Knight if the 1987 Dolph Lundgren Masters of the Universe film influenced him. “Not really,” stated Knight. “I watched that movie as a kid, and I have a lot of affection for it. It’s incredibly entertaining. But at the time, what disappointed me was that it didn’t feel like my He-Man. There was not a blueprint for what to do or avoid. For me, the real source material was the toys, the comics, and the cartoon. That’s where I fell in love with it. I wanted to honor what made it unique while also finding emotional and thematic resonance for a modern audience.”
Our friends at Geeks of Color asked how much of the movie took place on Earth. “Very little,” stated Knight. “It’s an important grounding mechanism for us, and there was a reason why we did it, which you’ll see when you watch the movie. There’s a lot of virtue that come out of being able to have it, because that is part of [Adam’s] ancestry. His mother is from Earth. And it allowed us to do certain things that pay off down the road. But only about 15–17% of the movie takes place there. Most of the film is on Eternia. We start on Eternia, go to Earth briefly, then return to Eternia for the rest of the movie.”
Knight was then asked about finding the right balance for his villains. “It all comes down to tone,” he began. “The critical story that you’re trying to tell and then how you tell it. Masters of the Universe has always had cheekiness and playfulness baked into its DNA. It was never completely serious. But we still take the emotional story seriously. These characters are very over-the-top. They look ridiculous. They have ridiculous names. So part of the challenge was finding ways to find reasons for those things, and honor the characters we loved as kids but made sense for this world. Triclops feels like Triclops. Trap Jaw feels like Trap Jaw. Skeletor feels like Skeletor. It’s our own cinematic interpretation, but we always went back to the source material to understand what made those characters special in the first place.”
As a final question, our friends at Geeks of Color asked if Knight’s work on Bumblebee influenced his VFX work on the film — particularly weapons and enemy transformations. “Asolutely. When I talked with the VFX team about Trap Jaw’s transforming arm — the ‘Swiss Army knife’ arm — there was a temptation to make it feel like nanotech. But there was no way I was doing nanotech. I wanted it to feel physical and mechanical, like the transformations in the Transformers movies. Tactical. Practical. Like it’s made of pig iron and grease and oil. So yes, there’s definitely overlap there.”
After everything we heard and had the pleasure of seeing for Masters of the Universe, including the footage they showed us prior to our roundtable conversation with Knight, we could definitely see the influence of the director’s Laika roots and approach to emotionally driven storytelling in every fiber of the film. As a result, our anticipation could not be higher. We absolutely have full confidence that Knight has the power to pull off an incredible adaptation. And we know audiences will feel the same way too, when Masters of the Universe hits theaters on June 5!
Stay tuned to The Nerds of Color for more coverage on Masters of the Universe coming soon!