Major Matt Mason celebrates its 60th anniversary this year.
(Image credit: Mattel)
As evidenced by Paramount's live-action "Transformers" movies and the recent "Masters of the Universe" film released by Amazon MGM Studios, nostalgic toy lines can serve as fertile grounds for a variety of engaging Hollywood projects leaning into vintage intellectual properties.With Mattel ramping up their own film production efforts and toy-to-screen endeavors after enormous success with "The Barbie Movie" and hi-octane plans for Hot Wheels movies rolling into theaters, the toys-to-silver screen craze shows no sign of slowing down. What could be next? We think there's a perfect choice hiding in the Mattel goldmine that might just become the next big thing.We're of course talking about Major Matt Mason, that Plastisol astronaut action figure and kids' playset product line from the 1960s, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year.Born in the 1960s, during the heat of America's space race with NASA's Apollo program aiming for the lunar landing by the end of the decade, Mattel's design mastermind's found inspiration in visionary space concept artists' wild dreams of futuristic moon bases, lunar buggies, and space vehicles.Major Matt Mason was one of the first serious space toys to exist in the marketplace, first hitting the shelves of toy shops and department stores across the country in 1966.Capitalizing on the daily news stories of Gemini missions and Apollo moon-walking dreams, this spacefaring fellow and his astronaut pals let kids everywhere imagine colorful cosmic adventures.
