Masters of the Universe is tracking to be a big flop
Presales are weak. The Guardian calls it a $200 million "misfire." TheWrap says it "stinks." He-Man opens Friday against Scary Movie 6 with just $25 to $35 million in tracking.
Masters of the Universe opens Friday, June 5, 2026, and it is on track to lose money for Amazon MGM.
The Travis Knight-directed He-Man reboot is currently tracking to open between $25 and $35 million at the domestic box office, according to BoxOffice Pro. The film’s reported production budget is between $170 and $200 million, before marketing costs that typically add another 50 to 100 percent. To break into the top five biggest opening weekends of 2026, it would need to earn at least $65 million, more than double what trackers are forecasting.
It is not going to.
Presales are described by GamesRadar as “not promising.” The Tomatometer score has slipped to 73 percent as more reviews land. The Guardian calls it a “$200 million misfire.” TheWrap says it “stinks.” And the Gen X core audience the film was built for has spent the last six months publicly arguing with the marketing campaign.
For a tentpole that needs broad appeal to break even, the math is not there.
The reviews are getting harsh
When early premiere reactions started landing in May, the buzz was warmer than expected. Critics called the movie “one of the biggest surprises of 2026“ and compared it to Marvel’s Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy. Film journalist Scott Menzel wrote that director Travis Knight “completely understood the assignment.”
That goodwill is no longer holding.
William Bibbiani at TheWrap published a takedown on June 2, calling the film “a confused and embarrassed sci-fi fantasy flop“ and saying it “could very well be the final nail in the coffin for 1980s nostalgia.” His closer: “By the power of Grayskull, this movie has a powerful odor. It stinks.“
Benjamin Lee at The Guardian was even more direct. “Amazon’s head-scratching $200m-budgeted misfire fails to explain why so much time, money and effort has been wasted on a movie based on a toy that kids just don’t play with any more,” Lee wrote. “There’s just too much distracting confusion here, from Galitzine’s unsure performance to the script’s swirl of competing tones to the very question of why this needed to exist.”
Other working critics have been gentler but still pointed.
Josh Parham at Next Best Picture wrote: “Masters of the Universe is a film of competing identities. It’s a film that tries to serve two masters, and doesn’t have the power to really honor either.“
Molly Freeman at Screen Rant said her “only real criticism“ was “how derivative it feels at times.”
Linda Marric at HeyUGuys compared the pacing unfavorably to Thor: Ragnarok. “The humour occasionally overwhelms dramatic scenes that need room to breathe.“
Allison Rose at FlickDirect called the 2-hour-13-minute runtime “uneven“ and said scenes “could and should have been cut down.”
Jesse Hassenger at the AV Club gave the film a C+, writing that the message “Adam serves as a beacon for empathy“ has “all the conviction of the corporate seminars that the movie briefly attempts to satirize.”
These are not killer reviews on their own. Together, they paint a picture of a film that critics find watchable but flawed, and audiences will probably find skippable.
Some critics are blaming the fans for the movie
The other story in the review cycle is how openly some critics are dismissing the existing fan base.
A Substack review at lytrules specifically warned that “manosphere clickbaiters may well complain that this He-Man is clumsy and makes mistakes.” Time Out ran a review describing the trailer’s pronoun moment as having “triggered instant anti-woke controversy online (it is a joke, guys).”
This framing has become a pattern in entertainment-press reactions to fan criticism of modern legacy IP reboots. Concerns from longtime fans, regardless of substance, are preemptively labeled as manosphere outrage, anti-woke backlash, or right-wing trolling. The framing serves to dismiss the criticism without engaging with it.
The problem is that the framing makes the underlying fan argument stronger, not weaker. When a fan worries that Hollywood has stopped respecting the source material, and the response from the press is to call the fan a manosphere clickbaiter, the fan now has direct evidence that the press is exactly as dismissive as they suspected.
This is a meaningful dynamic in 2026. The legacy IP fan base for Masters of the Universe skews male, skews Gen X, and skews toward people who have been hearing some version of “you are the problem” from entertainment coverage for nearly a decade. Telling them their concerns about a $200 million movie based on a beloved childhood franchise are simply manosphere outrage is not going to bring them back to the theater. It is going to keep them home and confirm that they were right to worry in the first place.
The fans called this six months ago
The most damaging part of the story is not the reviews. It is that the core audience for the franchise has been publicly warning that this exact problem was coming since the first trailer dropped in January.
The trailer included a scene where Prince Adam, exiled on Earth, sits at a corporate desk with a name placard reading “Adam Glenn He/Him.” The intended gag was a wink at the character’s name. The reaction pulled 15 million YouTube views in 48 hours and triggered a culture-war argument that never cooled down.
Director Travis Knight then went on a press tour that did not help.
In a February 6, 2026 interview with Empire magazine, Knight described Jared Leto’s Skeletor as “the embodiment of toxic masculinity.” Actress Camila Mendes, who plays Teela, gave similar interviews framing her character through “toxic masculinity” themes. Entertainment Weekly then ran an April feature describing He-Man as a “bronzed empathy coach in furry underpants“ and noting that adult Adam works “an unfulfilling corporate HR job (using pronouns).”
An early review from Andrew J. Salazar at Discussing Film praised the movie’s themes of “fragile masculinity and ego.” That sentence, intended as praise, landed worse with the core audience than most negative reviews.
The pattern was set. Fans of the original cartoon were being told, repeatedly, that the movie they grew up with had been repositioned as a story about modern masculinity. Bibbiani’s TheWrap review now confirms, from a completely independent critical angle, what those fans were worried about. The film, in his words, is “embarrassed by its own source material.”
When the trade press and the fan base independently arrive at the same complaint, it usually is not a coincidence.
The presales tell the rest of the story
Tickets went on sale in late May. Industry trackers describe presales as “solid but not explosive,” driven mostly by adult male fans who grew up with the original 1980s cartoon and the Mattel toy line.
That is the entire audience showing up.
There is no family-moviegoing surge. There is no broad cultural moment driving casual ticket buyers. There is no four-quadrant appeal that turns a niche tentpole into a hit. The He-Man brand is beloved by Gen X and older Millennials, but it does not carry the cultural urgency of Transformers, Mortal Kombat, or even the recent Ghostbusters reboots.
For comparison, the 1987 original Masters of the Universe with Dolph Lundgren earned just $17.3 million against a $22 million budget. That movie was also a box office flop.
Amazon MGM added a surprise IMAX release at the last minute, hoping the premium format would lift opening-weekend numbers. The move helped but did not change the underlying math.
Interestingly, Time Out‘s review noted that there is a sequel teased during the credits. Amazon MGM was already planning chapter two before chapter one had opened. Whether that sequel ever gets made will likely be answered by Sunday night’s actual numbers.
Friday is going to be brutal
Masters of the Universe opens against Scary Movie 6, which is tracking ahead at $35 to $40 million with significantly stronger first-choice demand among target audiences. The Mandalorian and Grogu, in its third weekend, is still playing wide. Backrooms, the A24 horror breakout, just opened to $81.4 million. Obsession, the indie horror that has now grown its audience in three consecutive weekends, is still expanding.
The competitive picture is the worst possible setup for a midsize tentpole opening to soft demand.
Toy Story 5 opens June 19. Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow opens June 26. By the end of June, Masters of the Universe will be out of the top five entirely.
For Amazon MGM, the financial damage is real but recoverable. The studio had a major hit earlier this year with Project Hail Mary and has a deep slate of upcoming releases. Masters of the Universe will be marked down as a calculated loss in service of broader IP development with Mattel, with the streaming run on Prime Video helping to recoup some of the budget over time.
For the Travis Knight reboot itself, this is essentially the end of the road. The sequel teased in the credits is extremely unlikely on these numbers. The franchise will probably go back into hibernation until another studio takes a swing in five or ten years, with a creative team that, presumably, will study what went wrong with this attempt.
What this says about Hollywood and legacy IP
The bigger story is not just about He-Man. It is about a decade-long pattern that keeps producing the same result.
A beloved legacy franchise gets handed to a new creative team. The team gives interviews about modernizing the material, deconstructing the protagonist, or updating the themes for a contemporary audience. The marketing leans into those themes. The original fan base feels alienated by the framing. The entertainment press dismisses their concerns as manosphere outrage, anti-woke backlash, or simply not getting the joke. The opening weekend disappoints. The studio is publicly surprised.
The list of films that have followed this pattern in the last decade is long. Ghostbusters in 2016. The Last Jedi. Charlie’s Angels in 2019. Madame Web. The Acolyte. Velma. The 2025 Snow White remake.
Travis Knight did not set out to make a bad He-Man movie. The reviews suggest he made a movie that has real craft underneath but cannot decide whether it loves its source material or wants to apologize for it. The Gen X audience that built the He-Man fandom in the 1980s could tell from the marketing alone which side of that question the movie had landed on. The critics now dismissing them as manosphere clickbaiters are giving them more reason, not less, to stay home.
Friday will confirm what the presales and the tracking already suggest. The audience for Masters of the Universe in 2026 is exactly the audience that has spent six months telling Hollywood it was tired of being talked down to. Hollywood made the movie anyway. The press is now talking down to them about it.
By the power of Grayskull, the receipts will be brutal.
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:
GamesRadar+ (June 2, 2026), “Masters of the Universe presales don’t look promising, and the movie is tracking to flop on opening weekend” reporting
BoxOffice Pro and BoxOffice Theory (May 28 to June 2, 2026), $25 to $35 million opening weekend tracking
The Hollywood Reporter (June 2, 2026), review roundup including Benjamin Lee’s verified Guardian quotes
The Guardian, Benjamin Lee’s verified “$200m-budgeted misfire” and “why this needed to exist” quotes
TheWrap (June 2, 2026), William Bibbiani’s full review including the “confused and embarrassed sci-fi fantasy flop,” “embarrassed by its own source material,” “powerful odor. It stinks,” and “final nail in the coffin for 1980s nostalgia” quotes
Rotten Tomatoes (June 2, 2026), current 73 percent Tomatometer and the official First Reviews roundup including verified quotes from Kat Hughes (THN), Allison Rose (FlickDirect), Linda Marric (HeyUGuys), Molly Freeman (Screen Rant), and Josh Parham (Next Best Picture)
AV Club, Jesse Hassenger’s verified C+ review and “corporate seminars” critique
Discussing Film, Andrew J. Salazar’s verified social media reaction including the “fragile masculinity and ego” framing
Scott Menzel’s verified social media premiere reaction
lytrules (June 2, 2026), the verified “manosphere clickbaiters” framing on the Substack review of the film
Time Out (June 2, 2026), the verified “anti-woke controversy online (it is a joke, guys)” line and confirmation of the credits sequel tease
Empire Magazine (February 6, 2026), Travis Knight’s verified “embodiment of toxic masculinity” interview
Entertainment Weekly, Chris Butler’s verified “bronzed empathy coach in furry underpants” framing
Comicbook.com (May 30, 2026), surprise IMAX release announcement
Koimoi (May 21, 2026), Box Office Pro tracking analysis comparing to 2026 top opening weekends including Scream 7 ($63.6 million)
Wikipedia, Masters of the Universe (2026 film) and Masters of the Universe (1987 film) including the verified $17.3 million 1987 gross against $22 million budget
Fox News and ComicBookMovie (January-February 2026), trailer controversy coverage
CBR (June 2, 2026), positive review noting Galitzine as “the Hero Fans Deserve”