Masters Of The Universe Might Get Buried By Scary Movie At The Box Office

Amazon MGM Studios

One of the most bizarre and unexpected box-office battles of the summer is about to unfold. On one side, we have the long-awaited, live-action remake of "Masters of the Universe," which hails from Amazon MGM Studios. On the other end, we have Paramount's new "Scary Movie," which brings the series back to its R-rated roots. 2010s Hollywood logic would tell you the big-budget franchise based on a beloved '80s property would run away with it. That's not how this one is going to go down, though.

As of this writing, director Travis Knight's "Masters of the Universe" is projected to open between $25 and $35 million domestically when it arrives next weekend, per Box Office Theory. Meanwhile, director Michael Tiddes' "Scary Movie" (the sixth in the franchise overall) is eyeing a debut in the $35 to $52 million range. The ceiling for "Scary Movie" has increased in recent weeks, too. Earlier tracking (per Deadline) had the reboot/sequel doing $35 to $40 million, while "MOTU" was hovering in the $35 million range. The floor has gotten lower on that front.

This is the kind of summer movie match-up that theater owners like to see. On paper, these are two movies that can absolutely co-exist. While it's not the bombshell box office success that was Barbenheimer, this double bill features an R-rated, raunchy horror-comedy and a big-budget fantasy franchise blockbuster. The difference between the 2010s and now, though, is that the horror/comedy is almost certainly going to come out on top. Times have changed.

Both of these movies ultimately have very different goals and needs. The question is, can "Masters of the Universe" still do what Amazon MGM needs it to do? Can "Scary Movie" help lead an unlikely theatrical comedy comeback?

Paramount Pictures

Starting with "Scary Movie," this franchise has been away for a long time. "Scary Movie 5" came out back in 2013. Much has changed since then. For one, theatrical comedies have slowly died off, for the most part, with most of those movies released on streaming services or dying at the box office. Paramount had luck with "The Naked Gun" ($42 million budget/$102 million worldwide) last year.

Now? The Wayans brothers have reunited to revive the spoof franchise they helped turn into a box office behemoth in the early 2000s. To date, the prior five movies in the series have generated more than $780 million at the box office against combined budgets of just $169 million. Critics be damned.

The latest entry in the series goes the classic legacy-sequel route, bringing back many familiar faces along with some new ones. This is generational nostalgia at work, with the new "Scary Movie" set to parody a bunch of classic and not-so-classic horror movies. Marlon Wayans ("Shorty"), Shawn Wayans ("Ray"), Anna Faris ("Cindy"), and Regina Hall ("Brenda") all return. The combination of familiar imagery, people's desire to laugh, and millennial nostalgia for the original movies is evidently working well to generate interest.

Assuming Paramount budgeted accordingly, likely in the $40 million range, this could be a sizable hit. It certainly doesn't hurt that horror has been the most reliable genre since the pandemic began. It's worth remembering that in the peak of the early 2000s spoof-cinema craze, "Meet the Spartans," one of the worst-reviewed movies of all time, was still a hit. Who knows? Maybe this genre has met its return point in the "everything old is new again" cycle.

Amazon MGM Studios

As for "Masters of the Universe," this could be an example of pre-pandemic Hollywood thinking at play. If things go as badly as they look like they might, it's just another example of studios needing to adjust their mindset and spending habits to match the times. Audiences who thrived to see stuff like this in the 2010s are aging out. I spoke to the next generation of Gen Z cinephiles, and Hollywood needs to cater to them. "MOTU" is aimed at Gen-X and millennials, many of whom are more content to stay home and stream stuff.

In the movie, after being separated for 15 years, Prince Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) returns to Eternia, where he discovers his home shattered under the rule of the evil Skeletor (Jared Leto). Adam must join forces with Teela (Camila Mendes) and Man-At-Arms (Idris Elba) and embrace his true destiny as He-Man to save the world.

It says a lot that Netflix spent $30 million on "Masters of the Universe" before axing the project. Amazon, a studio increasingly trying to become a meaningful player at the box office, saw an opportunity. The problem? The movie carries a budget in the $170 million range. In most cases, an over/under $30 million opening is a death sentence for a movie of this size.

Amazon, however, doesn't need these movies to purely profit in theaters, as they're largely looking to service Prime Video. Still, even with critics praising "MOTU" in the waves of early reactions, unless overseas audiences turn up in a big way, this is shaping up to be a big swing and a big miss, commercially speaking.

"Masters of the Universe" and "Scary Movie" hit theaters on June 5, 2026.