Before Noah Centineo became DC’s Atom Smasher, he was dangerously close to becoming another larger-than-life hero. The actor had already gone through screen tests, slipped into the iconic loincloth, and signed a contract for a franchise that could have stretched across multiple movies. Then the project kept changing hands, the delays piled up, and Centineo’s shot at becoming He-Man slowly slipped through the cracks.

But somewhere inside Sony’s vaults, there may still be proof of the superhero career that almost happened.

While recently appearing on Happy Sad Confused with Josh Horowitz, Noah Centineo revealed just how far he had gone in the race to play He-Man. This was not a casual audition that disappeared into the Hollywood void. He went through the screen-test process, filmed himself wearing the famous loincloth, signed a contract, and was shown early previs footage, production designs, and world-building for a franchise that could potentially stretch across three movies.

“We were pretty close, dude. I went through the test process. We screen-tested, loincloth and stuff, all of it. Somewhere that footage is out there. I’m sure it is somewhere. I don’t know where it is. Sony has it.” Centineo told Josh Horowitz.

Revealing to Horowitz further, Centineo said different directors came aboard as the studio kept pushing the project back and repeatedly tweaking it until his contract eventually ran out. The movie then took another detour, briefly moving to Netflix before Amazon became involved, while Centineo’s version of He-Man was left behind. Even now, he jokes that somewhere inside Sony there is footage of him testing for the role, although he suspects the studio may have simply “burned it.”

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But losing He-Man did not close the superhero door on Centineo. It merely sent his career down a completely different route.

Noah Centineo eventually landed in the DC universe as Albert Rothstein, aka Atom Smasher, in Black Adam. Suddenly, the actor who had once been preparing to swing a sword as He-Man was stepping into a comic-book blockbuster alongside Dwayne Johnson, Pierce Brosnan, and an entire new generation of DC heroes. The destination changed, but the superhero ambition clearly did not.

And now that detour is turning into something much bigger. Centineo is moving deeper into action territory with Street Fighter, where he plays Ken Masters in the upcoming 2026 adaptation, while he is also set to play John Rambo as a younger version of the iconic character. He-Man may have slipped through his fingers, but looking at the franchise-heavy road ahead, Centineo has hardly been left standing in the dust.

From Black Adam to Street Fighter and John Rambo, Centineo is still building the kind of action-heavy career that makes his forgotten screen test feel less like a dead end and more like a wild detour.

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Would you have wanted to see Noah Centineo take on the role, or was Black Adam the better superhero debut for him? Let us know in the comments.