Hasbro set up a dynasty of its most beloved toy franchises–many of which came to them following their purchase of Kenner and Tonka in 1991–and following the runaway success of the Transformers movie series, and the G.I. Joe movies, they went lofty, saying they wished to set up a cinematic universe of all their properties. But beyond those two, what’s next? Several have been in the works, but the winner for next to come to screens is M.A.S.K., a toy and cartoon series from the mid-’80s, with F. Gary Gray coming in to direct, according to Deadline.
Gray will also produce the film with Hasbro for Paramount Pictures. The director is coming off the monster critical and commercial success of Straight Outta Compton and the just-commercial success of The Fate of the Furious, which took in over $1.2 billion worldwide. He’s also in pre-production on the Men in Black reboot starring Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson. Dude’s killing it right now, which makes him perfect to take on a not-quite-so-remembered toy line involving cars.
Which brings us to M.A.S.K. Began in 1985 as both a toy line and the all-too-important animated series made to promote said toys, M.A.S.K. stood for “Mobile Armored Strike Kommand.” Yes, with a K for branding purposes. The idea was a team of heroes who drove regular-looking vehicles that would “transform” into different, more awesome vehicles. Their enemies were the evil forces of V.E.N.O.M., an acronym for the unfathomably literal name of “Vicious Evil Network Of Mayhem.”
The above video is the truly amazing theme song from the cartoon series, which tells us in the first line that they’re working overtime, and then immediately saying they neutralize evil as soon as they arrive. Which is it, M.A.S.K.? The main character of the series was Matt Trakker, which is a name only the ’80s could produce.
Do you all remember M.A.S.K.? Are you excited about this?
Image: Hasbro/Kenner
Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. He’s written the animation retrospectives Batman: Reanimated, X-Men: Reanimated, Cowboy Rebop, and Samurai reJacked. Follow him on Twitter!
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