Amazon MGM’s new Masters of the Universe movie featuring He-Man is a complete box office flop. That’s not shocking news for most. But what might surprise you is just how poorly the film is doing, with the expensive blockbuster bringing in just about $55 million globally. Yikes.
Released in theaters over the weekend, Masters of the Universe stars Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Adam / He-Man and Jared Leto as the evil Skeletor. It tells the story of Prince Adam, stuck in our boring, normal world, returning to his home planet to stop Skeletor and become the rightful leader of Eternia. The film has received solid reviews from critics, but that didn’t help bring people to the theater to see it.
As of June 7, Masters of the Universe has only brought in $29 million domestically and just $25 million from the 86 different countries it was released in globally for an abysmal opening weekend haul of just $54 million.
For a movie that cost Amazon MGM about $200 million to make, it’s a horrible start. And keep in mind, we don’t know how much was spent on marketing the film. Usually, the napkin math for movies is to take their reported production budget and double it to cover marketing and theater cuts. Doing that makes it seem extremely unlikely that the He-Man movie ends up being profitable.
Amazon pretends to not be worried about it
Nevertheless, Amazon MGM domestic distribution head Kevin Wilson didn’t seem to be too down in a statement posted over the weekend.
“This weekend represents a very solid start for Masters of the Universe and the passionate, multigenerational audience response we’re seeing around the world has been fantastic,” said Wilson. “[Director] Travis Knight and the entire cast and filmmaking team have delivered something truly special, and this opening is exactly the kind of critical first moment that validates our holistic distribution strategy—building awareness and engagement that will carry well beyond the theatrical window.”
In other words: Oh boy, we really hope this movie kills it on streaming when we dump it on Amazon Prime. As for Masters of the Universe’s future at the box office, it ain’t looking great as Toy Story 5 and Disclosure Day are showing up soon and will likely peel off a lot of its audience.
Meanwhile, Backrooms has been doing great at the box office and is yet one more indication, as The Mandalorian and Grogu struggles and falls out of the top five already, that big properties and established IP that appeal to older generations aren’t likely the future of cinema. Instead, smaller films that appeal to people who grew up watching YouTube and TikTok are going to be the thing that keeps Hollywood afloat for the next decade. The studios that figure this out will do well. The others…well, they’ll be stuck spending $200 million on movies about toys from the ’80s and hoping for the best.
