Box Office: Masters of the Universe may open at #3. Mando and Grogu may exit the top 5.
Scary Movie 6 is tracking for $45 to $50 million-plus and is the clear front-runner for the June 5-7 box office #1 spot. Backrooms is still on a tear, crossing $100 million in six days.
The box office for the weekend of June 5 to 7, 2026 is the most chaotic forecast in months.
Scary Movie 6 is tracking to win the weekend with $45 to $50 million-plus, according to Box Office Theory and Variety. The reboot from Paramount and Miramax reunites Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Anna Faris, and Regina Hall for the first time in over a decade. The film has a first-choice rating among target audiences that is roughly three times higher than Masters of the Universe, according to Deadline‘s tracking.
Backrooms, A24’s runaway horror phenomenon directed by 21-year-old Kane Parsons (now the youngest filmmaker in history to direct a $100 million-grossing film), crossed $100 million in six days and is expected to drop only 55% to 60% in its second weekend, landing it between $32 and $37 million.
Masters of the Universe from Amazon MGM is tracking at $30 to $35 million per Box Office Theory and Variety, slightly above earlier projections that had it as low as $25 million. The film opens on 3,500 screens with an upgraded IMAX release after Amazon negotiated to share premium-format screens with The Mandalorian and Grogu.
The Star Wars film, meanwhile, is in serious trouble.
The #3 question
The race for third place at the weekend box office is the most interesting one in months.
If the tracking holds and the high end of every prediction lands, the top three look like this:
Scary Movie 6: $48 million
Backrooms (Wk 2): $35 million
Masters of the Universe: $33 million
That puts Masters of the Universe at #3, the result the Amazon MGM marketing team has been quietly hoping for as the negative reviews stacked up over the past several days. Third place behind two genuine breakouts is not the result the studio wanted when they greenlit a $200 million He-Man movie, but it would be a defensible opening that beats the doomsday scenarios analysts had floated earlier in May.
If Masters of the Universe falls into the low end of its tracking range ($25 to $30 million), Backrooms holds better than expected (-50% drop, ~$40 million), or both, Masters of the Universe could land at #4 behind Scary Movie 6, Backrooms, and either Mandalorian and Grogu or the Obsession phenomenon.
That outcome would be much worse for Amazon MGM. Fourth place on opening weekend for a $200 million tentpole signals to the industry that the film is dead on arrival.
The decision rests largely on whether Masters of the Universe‘s critic-driven negative buzz pushes the actual opening down toward $25 million or whether the comic-fan-ground crowd shows up despite the reviews and delivers a $35 million-plus result.
By Sunday night, we will know.
The Mando question is even more important
The bigger question for the long-term health of the Lucasfilm operation is whether The Mandalorian and Grogu can stay in the top five at all.
The film opened to $82 million on Memorial Day weekend, then dropped a catastrophic 70 percent in its second weekend to roughly $25 million. By comparison, Solo: A Star Wars Story, which had a similar opening, only dropped to $30 million in its second week. Mando’s drop is steeper than Solo’s, and Solo is the worst-performing Star Wars theatrical film of the Disney era.
For a third weekend, the typical drop for a film like this is another 50 to 60 percent. If Mando and Grogu drops another 55 percent from $25 million, the third-weekend domestic total lands around $11 to $13 million. That is roughly on par with where Obsession, the indie horror phenomenon that has been growing week over week, is now expected to come in.
That math puts Mando and Grogu in serious risk of finishing #4 or #5 for the weekend, possibly behind Obsession. If the Mando drop is steeper than 60 percent (and the IMAX-screen split with Masters of the Universe makes that plausible), the Star Wars film could be outside the top five entirely.
For a Lucasfilm theatrical comeback after six years of absence from theaters, that outcome would be brutal. Disney executives, according to The Hollywood Reporter, have been using the phrase “pinwheel effect“ to describe what is happening to the film, where the audience that did show up for opening weekend has not generated the word-of-mouth needed to sustain the second and third week runs.
The pattern is identical to Solo in 2018, which collapsed in its third week and never recovered. Solo finished at $213 million domestic against a $250 million budget. Mando and Grogu is on pace for a slightly worse trajectory.
The Obsession wildcard
The most disruptive variable in the weekend forecast is not any of the new openers. It is Obsession, the Focus Features indie horror that opened modestly four weeks ago and has been growing its audience every week since then.
That should not be possible. Films almost never grow their box office week over week. The typical pattern is a strong opening, followed by 40 to 70 percent drops in each subsequent week as audiences shift to whatever else opens. Obsession has been doing the opposite.
The film entered its fourth weekend at roughly $15 to $20 million in projected weekend revenue, building from a much smaller opening. Focus Features has confirmed a 45-day theatrical window to keep the film exclusive to theaters, which has helped sustain the audience momentum.
If Obsession continues to grow, it could land at #4 for the weekend, potentially pushing Mando and Grogu out of the top five. That outcome would be the strangest box office configuration in years: a non-tentpole indie horror film consistently outperforming a Star Wars sequel and a $200 million He-Man movie in the same weekend.
It also says something significant about where the moviegoing audience actually is in 2026. Younger audiences, particularly Gen Z, have been driving the Obsession and Backrooms phenomena. Casual family audiences have not connected to Mandalorian and Grogu. And the legacy IP fanbase for He-Man, which Hollywood was supposed to be catering to with Masters of the Universe, has been alienated by the marketing and the early reviews.
The numbers are telling a story Hollywood has not yet fully processed.
What this all means
For Amazon MGM, the weekend is a financial gut check. The studio has $200 million sunk into Masters of the Universe and another $100 million-plus in marketing. A $33 million opening domestic, combined with soft international tracking ($25 to $30 million overseas), puts the film in a hole it is going to be very hard to climb out of. The eventual streaming run on Prime Video will help recover some of the cost over time, but the theatrical loss will be significant.
For Disney and Lucasfilm, the weekend is the moment when the post-2019 Star Wars theatrical strategy gets its real verdict. The Mandalorian and Grogu was supposed to prove the franchise could still draw audiences after six years away from theaters. The 70 percent second-weekend drop and the likely third-weekend collapse to under $15 million suggest the answer is no. The next Star Wars theatrical release, Starfighter with Ryan Gosling, is now scheduled for 2027, and Lucasfilm has very little margin for another disappointment.
For Paramount and Miramax, Scary Movie 6 is a major reputation rebuild. The franchise had been dormant for years before the Wayans brothers and the original cast reunited. A $45 million-plus opening would be one of the biggest live-action comedy debuts in years.
For A24 and Backrooms, the second weekend confirms what the first weekend hinted at: a 21-year-old YouTube filmmaker has produced the studio’s biggest theatrical release in its history, and Gen Z is showing up to support it in droves.
For Focus Features and Obsession, the weekend extends one of the most unusual box office runs in modern history. A film that should have peaked in its opening weekend is instead building audience.
For movie analysts, this is the weekend where most of the pre-pandemic assumptions about how a summer box office is supposed to look are getting overturned in real time.
The forecasts go to print on Sunday. The receipts arrive by Monday morning. Masters of the Universe needs the high end of its range, Mandalorian and Grogu needs a softer-than-expected drop, and Obsession needs to keep doing whatever it has been doing for the last month.
By the end of the weekend, we will know which way the new normal is bending.
Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, visit clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts. Sign up for the free newsletter at more.clownfishtv.com.
Hat Tips:
Variety (June 3, 2026), verified Scary Movie 6 $45 million-plus opening tracking and the Backrooms $100 million milestone reporting
Box Office Theory (June 3, 2026), verified weekend forecast including Scary Movie 6 $45-50M, Masters of the Universe $25-34M range, and Amazing Digital Circus $10.5-15.5M
Deadline (June 3, 2026), verified Scary Movie $70M worldwide opening projection, Masters of the Universe $50M worldwide projection, and the IMAX-sharing arrangement with The Mandalorian and Grogu
Cinemablend (June 3, 2026), verified $30-40M Box Office Pro Masters of the Universe range and the Perri Nemiroff positive review context
Koimoi (June 3, 2026), verified $30-35M Variety tracking range for Masters of the Universe across 3,500 locations
Star Wars News Net / Miguel Fernandez (June 2, 2026), verified 70% second-weekend drop for The Mandalorian and Grogu and the Solo comparison data
The Hollywood Reporter (May 31, 2026), Disney insiders’ verified “pinwheel effect” framing on The Mandalorian and Grogu
Variety (May 31, 2026), verified “catastrophic 70% drop” analysis
World of Reel (May 30, 2026), verified second-weekend collapse projections
Deadline (May 27, 2026), four-day Memorial Day weekend $98M update for The Mandalorian and Grogu
Variety (May 26, 2026), verified $82 million opening weekend, $102M four-day Memorial Day weekend
Box Office Mojo and The Numbers, verified historical Solo: A Star Wars Story domestic gross of $213 million on a $250 million budget
Focus Features corporate communications, verified Obsession 45-day theatrical window
Cinemablend (May 22, 2026), verified Backrooms $100 million six-day milestone making it A24’s biggest domestic release