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Tom Hanks to Star in Major Matt Mason Movie

Avro Arrow

Avro Arrow

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According to Variety, Tom Hanks and Akiva Goldsman are going to be developing a movie based on the "Major Matt Mason" toy line, for Paramount Pictures. The script will be based on short story written by Michael Chabon.

https://variety.com/2019/film/news/...matt-mason-at-paramount-exclusive-1203327436/

I have never heard of these toys outside of this board (they were before my time, anyway), but I've seen a number of people reminisce favourably about them, so I thought I'd post this for those who may be interested.

(Of course, it's both Tom Hanks and SF, so I'll probably watch it anyway, my lack of familiarity notwithstanding!)
 
I had so many of those toys.
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Their only competition was The Noble Knights.
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The Variety article but that might be just a supposition of the writer since the article also said Hanks and others involved had no immediate comments.
 
Avro Arrow said:
I have never heard of these toys outside of this board (they were before my time, anyway), but I've seen a number of people reminisce favourably about them, so I thought I'd post this for those who may be interested.
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Had a couple of the toys and a "Big Little" book where the good Major was trying to stop some sort of giant moon worm when I was a kid. Will be interested to see what they do with this project.
 
One of my cousins had some of these toys (the Matt Masons) once upon a time. But I don't remember any of the advertising, and don't remember seeing them in stores.

What I do remember was one of my older brothers had the Apollo model kit. He never built it, so when he left for college, my other brother and I assembled it. The tolerances were a little loose.
 
These were great. Their biggest drawback was the wires in the joints would wear out and break after just a few days of play. We repaired them by shoving straightened-out paper clips through their feet & hands.
 
One of my hopes here is that if this goes forward, Mattel will revive the toys - with better construction to remedy the issue that Daddy Todd describes above - there was nothing more sad than Maj. Matt with a limp arm.
 
Is anyone under 50 even familiar with this?

I wonder what the Chabon story is, Google doesn't reveal anything (unpublished?) and his Twitter page has no tweets but does have a background picture of what I assume is Matt Mason and a cryptic quote "space travel's in my blood there ain't nothing I can do about it".
 
Never heard of Major Matt Mason, but Tom Hanks is enough to get me interested.
 
Mr. Adventure said:
Is anyone under 50 even familiar with this?
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Probably, not. I had these spacemen (I think I remember white, red and blue space suits?) during the 60's. Loved them, too. My cousin had some of the vehicles, but my memory is very vague being over 50 years ago.
 
^ I'm too close for comfort and only know about it because a couple of years ago I came across it while reading about the weird 70s GI Joes that I do remember from the old Sears Christmas catalogs.
 
This is very interesting, and I'm glad Tom Hanks is involved. These were pretty much my favorite toys back in the late 60s. There were about a million different toys in the line, but we were too poor to afford more than a handful, so I used to pour over the little Major Matt Mason catalogue like it was an Arthur C Clarke novel. I nearly flipped out one Christmas when my Uncle Mike bought me the space station. :rommie:

Mysterion said:
One of my hopes here is that if this goes forward, Mattel will revive the toys - with better construction to remedy the issue that Daddy Todd describes above - there was nothing more sad than Maj. Matt with a limp arm.
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My guys all ended up amputees.

Henoch said:
Probably, not. I had these spacemen (I think I remember white, red and blue space suits?) during the 60's.
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Major Matt Mason had the white suit. I remember having guys with red and orange suits, but I don't remember their names off the top of my head. I don't remember a blue suit, but I probably just didn't have that guy.
 
JD said:
Never heard of Major Matt Mason, but Tom Hanks is enough to get me interested.
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I first heard of Major Matt Mason a number of years ago when Tom Hanks previously was announced to be attached to a movie version. Nothing had been heard of it until now. Looking it up that was back in 2011!

So I am glad it’s finally gaining traction. While I never heard of it at the time it sounded cool and been disappointed it was so quiet on news.

It’s interesting how many different projects a star of Hanks level must have at different levels of development.
 
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