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Masters of the Universe may have been a huge undertaking but, somehow, it isn't the only film director Travis Knight is releasing this year. As well as a live-action filmmaker, Knight is also the CEO of Laika, where he has directed two of the stop-motion studio's animated movies, including this year's Wildwood.
So how exactly is Knight releasing two years-in-the-making projects within 5 months of each other? "I don't recommend it!" chuckles Knight when GamesRadar+ catches up with him in London. "I'm still working on Wildwood actually." Of course, stop-motion animation is a famously slow process – at best, an animator can hope to produce seconds of footage per day – so operating on different production tracks helped. As did the fact that Wildwood has been in the works for over a decade.
"I've been developing Wildwood for 16 years," Knight says. "The majority of my career, the majority of my adult life, I've been working on this project. And I'm nearly done with it. But, you know, there was definitely overlap there."
While pointing out that Masters of the Universe – an irreverent reboot of the '80s Filmation cartoon – and Wildwood – a magical fantasy about a young girl whose infant brother is kidnapped by crows – are "very different kinds of movies," Knight notes that the two "share kind of a philosophical DNA. If I analyze it, there is some influence that one has over the other. But I don't think [that can be helped] when you're working on something that you deeply care about so intensely for so long, and when those things happen to coincide."
"I'm just happy for how it all came together," Knight continues. "Because I think Masters is a special movie. Working on Masters, actually, it changed the way I was thinking about Wildwood as we're doing all the final visual effects and everything. And in fact, some people I met along the way working on Masters, I loved collaborating with them so much that I then brought them on to Wildwood after we finished on Masters. So they definitely are connected in some way."
Masters of the Universe is out now in some parts of the world, and is a reimagining of the famed '80s animated series. You can read our full Masters of the Universe review now. Wildwood, meanwhile, is Laika's next, long-in-the-making movie – an adaptation of Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis' 2011 novel. The wildly popular Wildwood teaser trailer (see above) has already racked up an astonishing 89 million views on YouTube alone. Before his banner 2026, Knight directed 2016's Kubo and the Two Strings at Laika, and helmed 2018's warmly received live-action Transformers spin-off, Bumblebee.
In conversation with GamesRadar+, Knight also explained how the new Masters of the Universe movie reckons with He-Man's "internally inconsistent" mythology, and told us all about Jared Leto's scene-stealing Skeletor.
Masters of the Universe is in UK cinemas now, and hits US theaters on June 5. Wildwood releases in theaters on October 23. For more, check out our list of upcoming movies, or plan out the rest of your movie-going year with our 2026 movie release dates guide.
