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Jared Leto can't stop playing dead weird guys with skin issues, as he's our new Skeletor

Jared Leto is Skeletor. I mean, he's cast as playing Skeletor in a Masters of the Universe movie

News by Chris Arrant, Editor-in-Chief

Published on Fri Dec 20 2024

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Being typecast is a thing - in real life, and as an actor. For Jared Leto, he has found himself being typecast as your ideal dark, brooding villain on the big screen over and over again... and now he's doing it again.

Leto has now been cast as the paradoxical skull-faced-but-somehow-super-muscular Skeleton in the long gestating Masters of the Universe film. The Hollywood Reporter's Etan Vlessing, who first reported the news, says that the plot of the movie is locked up tighter than Castle Grayskull but presumably it'd be what all the Masters of the Universe stories have been about: a beefy He-Man (who looks like his name) and friends fighting against Skeletor (who looks like his name) and his friends.

For Leto, this is the latest in a long line of roles he's gotten where he's played a dead (or dead-ish) dark character who is a bit villainous (or a lot villainous), and also happens to have deathly-skin color. Don't believe me?

The Joker in Suicide Squad (2016)
Niander Wallace in Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
The Joker in Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)
Michael Morbius in Morbius (2022)
The Hatbox Ghost in Haunted Mansion (2023)

He's also set to play the villain in Disney's 2025 film Tron: Ares.

In Masters of the Universe, Jared Leto-as-Skeletor will be facing off against Nicholas Galitzine's He-Man, and by his bony side will be Alison Brie as Evil-Lyn.

Leto is known for being a bit of a method actor in his roles, specifically when it comes to body types, but I hope he doesn't go full Skeletor to be Skeletor. You never go full Skeletor.

Masters of the Universe is scheduled to hit theaters June 5, 2026.

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Chris Arrant: Chris Arrant is the Popverse's Editor-in-Chief. He has written about pop culture for USA Today, Life, Entertainment Weekly, Publisher's Weekly, Marvel, Newsarama, CBR, and more. He has acted as a judge for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, the Harvey Awards, and the Stan Lee Awards. (He/him)