After over a decade and a half languishing in development hell, the Masters of the Universe reboot is finally rolling cameras. Principal photography began last month, with Nicholas Galitzine leading the charge playing Prince Adam/He-Man. Another round of casting information has come in for Amazon MGM Studios’ “quite different” Masters of the Universe, and while it’s good so see that all these people will be taking part in the 2026 release, I can’t help but remain curious about how one particular character from the He-Man mythology will be handled.
Who’s Been Added To The Masters Of The Universe Cast?
The first casting update comes to us from Deadline, which shared that Morena Baccarin and Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson have been tapped to play The Sorceress of Castle Grayskull and Fisto, respectively. As her title suggests, The Sorceress protects the power contained with Castle Grayskull, which is what allows Prince Adam to turn into He-Man. The tradeoff is she can’t use her special abilities outside of the castle’s walls, and when she is outside the castle, she becomes a telepathic falcon named Zoar. As for Fisto, he’s a super-strong guy with a metal hand who originally works for Skeletor, but later becomes one of He-Man’s allies.
Then, THR passed along that we can also expect to see James Purefoy and Charlotte Riley as Prince Adam’s parents, King Randor and Queen Marlena. Neither of them are aware of their son’s secret life as He-Man, but while Randor is completely clueless about this, Marlena frequently suspects there’s more going on with Adam than it seems. These four new actors join a cast that also consists of Jared Leto as Skeletor, Camila Mendes as Teela (who, in some versions of the canon, is The Sorceress’ daughter), Alison Brie as Evil-Lyn, Idris Elba as Man-At-Arms, Sam C. Wilson as Trap Jaw, Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson as Goat Man and Kojo Attah as Tri-Klops.
How Will Orko Be Handled In Masters Of The Universe?
This is a solid lineup of talent, but you’ll notice that all the Masters of the Universe characters that have been cast so far are humanoid in one form or another. There are a handful that don’t fall within this scope, like Orko, a magician from the world of Trolla whose spells frequently backfire or don’t work as intended when he’s trying to help out He-Man. Needless to say Orko is frequently depicted as comic relief, although Masters of the Universe: Revelation, which can be streamed with a Netflix subscription, did effectively add more dimension to the character.
Now to be fair, we don’t know for certain that Orko will appear in the Masters of the Universe reboot. However, we’ve also come a long way from 1987’s Masters of the Universe, which did not include him due to his designs being too complex to effectively realize off the movie’s limited budget, and Gwildor was created to replace him. Now we live in a time where Orko can be brought to “life” with CGI and performance capture technology, but exactly how would a “live-action” version of him look?
My gut says to maintain Orko’s animated appearance as closely as possible, but I also don’t want him appearing too cartoonish in a movie that I suspect will be handling its source material in a more serious manner. At the same time, if Orko is made to look too realistic, I worry we could end up with something similar to Sonic the Hedgehog’s original cinematic design. If done improperly, those glowing yellow eyes and obscured face could end up creeping out kids.
Masters of the Universe doesn’t come out until June 5, 2026, but I’m eager to see what the team led by director Travis Knight come up with for Orko. Hopefully a good happy-medium can be achieved, like what’s being done for Toothless in the live-action How to Train Your Dragon. Meanwhile, CinemaBlend will keep passing along casting updates and other big news about the reboot.
