A Toy, An Astronaut, and a Ranking Officer? Sounds like Tom Hanks!

A movie that is both about a Toy come to life AND an Astronaut...could there be an actor more qualified than Tom Hanks? Luckily, Mattel and Hanks saw "Major Matt Mason" the same way.

Major Matt Mason was a GI Joe type action figure that was big in the late 60s and early 70s as space . The character's story was that he was the leader of a team of astronauts who lived and worked on the moon. It was a big deal at the time because the public was fascinated with the space missions as the ramp up to the lunar landing and astronauts were like rock stars.

Hanks will star and he and his Playtone production company will produce "Major Matt Mason" with execs from Mattel exec producing for Universal. It apparently wasn't hard to convince Hanks: Mattel execs showed up to the meeting with a line of Major Matt figures but needn't .... Hanks showed up with his own personal collection.

Incidentally, Universal is big on turning merchandising into movies. They also have movies in the works about Stretch Armstong, Ouija Boards and Monopoly.

For more, go to Michael Fleming's article in Variety:

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118001618.html?categoryid=13&cs=1