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As the summer movie season rolls on, a loaded June kicked off with a showdown between two very different franchise revivals. In one corner was Masters of the Universe, a big-budget revival of the classic 1980s fantasy franchise. Opening directly against it was Scary Movie, the first new installment of the popular horror parody series in over a decade. Because the two films had distinct target audiences, it seemed like there would be plenty of money to go around for both to have fruitful openings. However, that isn’t the way things panned out, as one new arrival was far more successful than the other.
According to Variety, Scary Movie is far and away the No. 1 movie this weekend after scoring a franchise-best $55 million domestically in its debut. Its worldwide opening currently stands at $105.5 million. In stark contrast, Masters of the Universe didn’t leave much of an impression. The pricey (budget of $170-200 million) reboot brought in just $29.3 million domestically. Deadline notes that the worldwide opening was $54.3 million.
Why Scary Movie Beat Masters of the Universe At the Box Office
Masters of the Universe was never pegged to be a huge blockbuster, but this is still a rather disappointing result. Heading into the weekend, the projections pegged it for a start of $30-35 million domestically, so it didn’t even hit the low end of those estimates. While the movie itself turned out fine (Masters of the Universe earned generally positive reviews that called it a fun fantasy movie), the IP doesn’t have as much clout in the pop culture zeitgeist as it did decades ago. As evidenced by the low Thursday preview numbers, the main target audience for this film was small. It never broke out and appealed to a younger crowd; $200 million tentpoles need to connect with multiple quadrants in order to be successful.
In contrast, Scary Movie arrived at the perfect time. Horror has always been a huge box office draw, but the genre has been enjoying quite a moment over the past handful of years, with a long list of titles that turned out to be massive hits. Seeing the likes of Sinners, Weapons, Get Out, and more being lampooned by Marlon Wayans and Co. seemed like a good time at the movies. Comedies can be communal experience at the movie theater, which only added to Scary Movie‘s appeal. It’ll be interesting to see how it holds up (the Rotten Tomatoes critics score is just 26%), but audiences seem to be liking it, and there aren’t any other adult-orientated comedies on the immediate horizon.
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After Project Hail Mary broke box office records in the spring, Amazon was certainly hoping for better results for Masters of the Universe, a foray into big-budget franchise filmmaking. The studio was confident in the movie’s prospects, securing a last-minute IMAX release and planting the seeds for possible sequels, but any plans for a continuation might be kaput. Getting off to such a slow start is a bad sign for Masters of the Universe‘s long-term prospects. It’s going to need to have very strong legs in order to recoup its costs (the production budget does not include marketing and distribution costs), and the odds of that happening are quite low.
The rest of June is stacked with high-profile releases that’ll all be vying for audiences’ attention. Next weekend sees the debut of Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, which has been generating buzz as the director’s best film in years. The week after that is when Pixar’s Toy Story 5 arrives, and that has a great chance of hitting $1 billion worldwide. June wraps up with DC’s Supergirl, and then July has even more anticipated titles. The multiplex is going to get quite crowded over the next few weeks, meaning Masters of the Universe should slide down the charts. If it couldn’t benefit from minimal competition for genre pictures in its opening, the interest just isn’t there.
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