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He-Man will really have to call on the power of Greyskull if he hopes to get a movie made anytime soon. Variety has confirmed Latino Review's earlier scoop, and reports that Mattel and Warner Bros have parted ways on He-Man. All is not lost, as Mattel fully intends to shop the muscles from Eternia to other studios, and John Stevenson is expected to remain on board as director. Producer Joel Silver, who has been involved with developing He-Man since 2007, will have to say farewell as he's exclusive to Warner Bros.

The last we heard about Warner Bros' Greyskull was that the studio brought newcomer Evan Daugherty to revamp Justin Marks' script. Clearly, not even the rewrite kindled any enthusiasm, as Variety notes that Mattel and Warner Bros just didn't see eye to eye on the film. They made a mutual decision to let the project lapse this month.

But all is not lost for a happy marriage between Mattel, Warner Bros, and Silver as they still have Hot Wheels in development. Between you and me if you were going to let an option lapse, it'd be a movie based on a line of little toy cars. I'm not knocking them, I had tons of them. But even in my wildest kid dreams, I never saw them as movie material. But He-Man? Definitely! It had swords, sorcery, and a promise of PG-13 bloodletting. Someone else will see that, and quickly snatch Greyskull up for a buff blonde boy to turn into a franchise.

Granted, McG doesn't have the best track record in holding on to projects, so until everyone signs on the dotted line we will have to chalk this up to idle chatter for now. According to Bloody-Disgusting.com McG will be taking over directing duties for the fantasy film Me and My Monster, which is about, "A young boy [who] has a friendship with a bizarre creature that changes the course of his life as he becomes an adult." This instantly brings to my mind the Phoebe Cates film Drop Dead Fred, but I tend of have a film memory that is ruled by tangents. The script for Monster was written by Matthew Huffman and Robot Chicken writer Dan Milano and originally, Jake Gyllenhaal was attached to the project as the lead, but there has been no update on that recently.

The last film we had from McG was the male weepy We Are Marshall and there had been some talk that he had been chosen to replace Peter Berg on the big-screen version of The Losers -- a DC/Vertigo series that was based on obscure DC title. But now, that project has been taken over by Tim Story. There is still the chance that McG will be producing a live-action film about Hot Wheels, but it's almost been a year and there seems to be no movement on that one. The current studio climate seems to favor nostalgia, so it could still happen -- that is if he doesn't drop out or get replaced first.

Anyone else annoyed at the fact that McG calls himself McG? Man, it's these little things that bother me ... and most of the time I have no idea why. In a recent interview with Coming Soon, the We Are Marshall director talked about one of the more (fascinating? ridiculous?) projects his name is currently attached to -- a movie based on Hot Wheels. Ya know, those toy cars you grew up with?

While IMDB lists him as director, McG admitted he will only be producing (gee, I wonder why?) saying, "... it doesn't feel right for me as a director at this time." No sh*t, really? Is that just his way of saying, "There's no way in hell I would jeopardize my entire career on a movie about friggin' Hot Wheels?" McG, whose birth name is Joseph McGinty Nichol (see, the things you learn on Cinematical ... ), also divulged a bit of plot for the film: "We just have a take on that, it's the story of a kid trying to reconcile with his father. It's a kid who steals his dad's race car and ends up going through a sort of "Back to the Future" portal into this world, and he has to reconcile his relationship with his father." Seeing as he threw Back to the Future in there, it seems the race car might really be ... a time machine! Wait, perhaps McG will tell us what this all has to do with, ya know, Hot Wheels: "It's very "Stand by Me", and it should be a good family movie."

Wait, Stand by Me is about a group of kids who find a dead body? So, according to McG, it's Back to the Future meets Stand by Me ... but based on Hot Wheels, the toy. Is it just me, or are you a little dazed and confused right about now? When asked whether it was important to get Hot Wheels in theaters before Speed Racer, he wasn't sure -- the project is still in development (hell?). More on Hot Wheels as it hits the net ...

[via Moviehole]