Two 1987 fan-favorites are getting big-screen reboots.

The long-gestating He-Man film is finally looking like it could be moving forward. John Stevenson, one of the co-directors of Kung Fu Panda, will be making his live action directorial debut with a relaunch of the franchise. Based on the toy line by Mattel, the property became a hit cartoon series in the early 80’s before it was made into Masters of the Universe, a campy live-action feature starring Dolph Lundgren and Frank Langella. Justin Marks wrote the script for the reboot, which skews toward gritty fantasy and reimagines some of the original story. Stevenson cut his teeth working for Jim Henson before moving his way up the ranks as a storyboard artist. He seems to have the right approach to this project, so I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do with it.

In more geek news, the Predator franchise has suffered through the AVP “series,” but the original two films were loads of fun and have a pretty die-hard fan following. So now that Bloody Disgusting is reporting that Robert Rodriguez and his Troublemaker Studios are manning the relaunch of the Predator franchise, that following could be either raging pissed or cautiously optimistic. The pitch going around town implies that we could see more than one Predator– “In the reboot a team of commandoes face down a mysterious race of vicious monsters”–and I’m not sure how I feel about that. Predators are supposed to be solitary hunters, no? Anyway, there isn’t a script or even a writer for it yet, and it’s unclear if Rodriguez will direct the movie himself, but we’ll keep tabs on this project as it goes through development.

Tags: Dolph Lundgren, Frank Langella, He-Man, John Stevenson, Justin Marks, Predator, Robert Rodriguez