Masters of the Universe 2 Is Hard to Justify After Box Office Crash

Masters of the Universe is now playing in theaters. While a sequel to the movie seemed inevitable, its recent box office numbers make it harder to justify.

The new He-Man movie is directed by Travis Knight and stars Nicholas Galitzine, Camila Mendes, Alison Brie, James Purefoy, Idris Elba, Jared Leto, Morena Baccarin, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Kristen Wiig, and Jared Leto. After premiering last weekend, the Masters of the Universe movie took a massive drop at the box office. Following its opening weekend, the movie dropped to the fifth spot in the box office and has now earned just $84 million worldwide, well under its $200 million budget.

While a sequel to the movie seemed likely even without a steady box office growth, the movie’s sudden drop and lack of word of mouth might make it even harder to justify now.

Masters of the Universe’s rough box office drop makes a sequel a tougher sell

Following its initial opening weekend, which saw the film earn $54 million globally, it seemed like the movie might be headed for a disappointing yet still decent enough box office return. Amazon MGM Studios domestic distribution chief Kevin Wilson even seemed to hint that the film had been well received and that they’d look at metrics beyond just box office numbers to judge its future.

“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,” Wilson said in a statement. “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.”

However, “a very solid start” represents pretty much the beginning and end of Masters of the Universe’s box office success. This weekend, the film saw the massive drop described above. Barring some sort of wild word-of-mouth miracle, it seems like the movie will continue to see smaller and smaller returns at the box office, especially as movies like Toy Story 5 begin to arrive.

Despite its bad box office numbers, Masters of the Universe might be the rare franchise movie that performed poorly at the box office despite being a well-received film. The movie holds a 68% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes and a whopping 87% audience score on the site. The movie is clearly liked by those who see it, but the problem just might be that not enough people are seeing it to justify making another, especially with the cost of the first being so high and (not yet) making back even half of its budget.

Given the fact that Amazon could be looking for even more franchises to continue building out, it wouldn’t be impossible to see a second movie made. Amazon is looking for movies to continue building worlds out of and spinning properties out to, but the latest box office results for Masters of the Universe make it much harder to promise a sequel than just a week ago.

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