Jared Leto's Skeletor Voice Is Not Inspired by Tom Hardy's Bane, Masters of the Universe Director Says

The net decidedly had immoderate thoughts astir Jared Leto’s Skeletor dependable erstwhile the archetypal Masters of the Universe trailer dropped, with galore fans suspecting the Oscar victor was doing a riff connected Tom Hardy’s Bane dependable from The Dark Knight Rises. But Masters of the Universe manager Travis Knight insists that’s not the case.

“He's decidedly not doing an homage to Tom Hardy's Bane,” Knight told maine during a CinemaCon reception aft Amazon MGM showed the property a enactment of footage from Masters of the Universe.

“It's 1 of the things that Jared and I spoke astir rather a bit, actually, due to the fact that determination person been aggregate iterations of Skeletor, of course, the iconic one, [Alan] Oppenheimer, wherever it benignant of established everything. We knew that we didn't privation to bash an Alan Oppenheimer impression. Now, portion of that crushed is you gotta spell backmost to the genesis of wherever that dependable adjacent came from.”

Knight continued, “This came retired successful the ‘80s. Skeletor was benignant of scary and truthful they really made the prime to springiness him a ridiculous dependable to instrumentality the borderline disconnected of however scary helium looked [to children]. They did. And it was precise funny, and it was precise iconic. For us, we privation to marque definite that Skeletor embodied each those things that we loved astir Skeletor. So helium looked cool, helium was funny, helium was scary arsenic hell, and helium had a precise distinctive dependable and laugh.”

The manager said Leto “spent a sizeable magnitude of clip really trying to fig retired what that dependable would dependable like. Ultimately, helium landed connected thing that I'm delighted with. It's thing that has menace. It has an aerial of theatricality, which is ever thing that was portion of Skeletor. He was very, precise dramatic. He was precise showy. He ever liked putting connected a amusement and getting a response. So it's theatrical, it's scary, and helium tin adjacent beryllium rather comic successful his insecurities. And truthful it was decidedly not influenced by Bane. It was not influenced by anyone different than benignant of conscionable knowing what came earlier it and past trying to find your ain mentation of it.”

Knight besides said Leto knew going into the movie that helium would beryllium down a disguise the full time, and that the actor, who was a He-Man instrumentality arsenic a kid, wanted to bash Skeletor “justice”.

“Any histrion trying to capable those large boots would person to cognize that fundamentally nary 1 volition adjacent ever spot your face,” Knight said. “It was important for america to bash it justice. But yeah, helium knew that it was important to maine that Skeletor looked similar Skeletor, which means helium had a skull face. And that was thing we benignant of had to merchantability everyone on. But Jared was each in.”

Knight besides explained that the nuances of Leto’s show connected acceptable were captious to the animators who had to make the movements and expressions connected Skeletor’s face: “The animators would look astatine what helium does and effort to get that benignant of idiosyncratic item successful his face. And they did an astonishing job. It's benignant of a tricky thing, [to] spot however acold you tin propulsion it, expressions connected a skull. But we figured he's an alien, possibly helium has a small much flexibility than our mentation of a skull does. But helium has truthful overmuch quality and personality. I'm conscionable delighted by what we got.”

Masters of the Universe volition beryllium released theatrically successful the U.S. connected June 5, 2026.