This Masters Of The Universe Vehicle Was A Toy Nightmare For Mattel [Set Visit]
by Hannah Shaw-Williams · /FilmBelow-the-line creatives on big-budget blockbusters like "Masters of the Universe" aren't just designing costumes, props, creatures, and vehicles for the movie itself. They're also designing action figures, toy vehicles, and even popcorn buckets.
That's especially true for this particular movie, since He-Man and his pals were on toy store shelves before they were ever on TV screens. In the early 1980s, Mattel came up with some innovative ways to boost sales, including giving kids free cans of slime to get them hooked and then gatekeeping further slime refills behind action figure purchases. But by far the most successful marketing strategy was the 1980s Filmation cartoon "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe." It was the first ever instance of a TV show being created for the purpose of selling an existing toy line, and it was game-changingly effective.
Given the franchise's origins, it's no secret that 2026's "Masters of the Universe" movie is also hoping to sell a few toys. For production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas, who gave /Film a tour of his concept work during a set visit last year, that meant that in addition to getting director Travis Knight's approval for the film's designs, he also had to send them to Mattel for clearance.
Creatives often dread getting "notes" on their work, but the only note that Dyas got from "the mother company" during production was one that made him feel "very proud." After he shared the revamped design for Rotons, a vehicle used by the franchise's villains, Mattel's toymakers told him: "Oh my god, this is the hardest toy we have ever had to design."
The new Rotons have 360-degree maneuverability
The original Roton design was kind of silly: a barrel-shaped vehicle surrounded by red blades that spun around as it moved, with two angry eyes painted on the front and laser guns mounted behind the eyes for bonus intimidation. So, the challenge for "Masters of the Universe" 2026 was, as Guy Hendrix Dyas put it, "How do you make that cool?"
"You, first of all, start with the buzzsaw, and then you say, OK, what happens if we turn this into a gyroscopic situation?" Dyas recapped. "So, you're sitting in an independent vehicle, and the whole of the vehicle can actually turn around you [...] We ended up with these very aggressive, very cool sort of speeder bikes that have these dual blades which travel around." (Dyas' concept art sketchbook, filled with painstakingly detailed pencil drawings of his designs, was the standout star of the set visit.)
The new Rotons can still attack in the horizontal position of the originals, but since the buzzsaw blades now have 360-degree maneuverability, they can also flip up into a vertical position to become wheels of death that tear up the ground beneath them as they move. Oh, and they still have the laser guns, too. But while the movie could use CGI to bring the Rotons to life, the toymakers at Mattel had to figure out how to build real-life miniaturized versions for kids to play with.
He might have caused a few headaches in the toy lab, but Dyas took the complaints as a compliment: "As an ex-industrial designer who used to work for Sony and do Walkmans back in the day, it was with great pride that I heard that this was incredibly complicated."
"Masters of the Universe" spins into theaters on June 5, 2026.