Deadline has confirmed that How to Train Your Dragon filmmaker Dean DeBlois is directing and writing Paramount/Hasbro’s live-action sci-fi pic Micronauts, based on the popular kids’ toys from the 1970s and 80s.

The toys, little plastic men with move-able joints –which differed from Kenner’s decor, stiff jointed Star Wars figures, spawned a Marvel comic.

The Micronauts came from the small universe, Microverse, which was full of strange planets like the human-inhabited Homeworld which is made up of diverse spherical habitats that are linked together in the fashion of a molecular chain. A resistance assembles in response to the threat posed by immortal dictator Baron Karza who gains control of Homeworld through the creation of the Body Banks, where life-extending brain transplants are performed on the rich and inhuman genetic alterations on the poor.

Micronauts was in the works at Bad Robot for many years with a screenplay by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. DeBlois take is under wraps, but will focus on intergalactic explorers. Arguably, it was the toys that were always the stars here in Micronauts for anyone over 40. The IP’s mythology wasn’t as much in the public eye like G.I. Joe which had both the Marvel comic and cartoon series in the ’80s (inspired by the comics). Hence, the sky is the limit for any direction Paramount, Hasbro and DeBlois wish to take Micronauts.

Pic is set for June 4, 2021 release.