'Masters of the Universe' is aiming to battle to box office success

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He-Man, the burly barbarian from next month's Masters of the Universe movie, has got big boots to fill. The character comes from a popular 1980s line of action figures made by Mattel which was also behind Barbie, the toy range which became a $1.4 billion blockbuster movie in 2023. Masters of the Universe is also the first big action flick from Amazon MGM Studios and no expense has been spared on it.

He-Man himself is played by muscle-bound Brit Nicholas Galitzine, whose biggest role so far was in 2020 supernatural horror film The Craft: Legacy. However, he is joined by an array of A Listers including Morena Baccarin, Kristen Wiig, Idris Elba and Jared Leto who plays He-Man's arch-enemy Skeletor.

Masters of the Universe is a reboot of the 1987 live action movie with the same name which starred Dolph Lundgren as He-Man and bombed at the box office grossing just $17.3 million. Interest in the rights was reignited in 2007 following the runaway success of Michael Bay's first movie about Transformers, another beloved '80s toy line.

After that, the He-Man rights went through a revolving door of studios including Sony, Warner Bros. and Netflix which had significant success producing modern versions of the classic cartoons about the character. According to Variety, Netflix spent nearly $30 million on developing a live action He-Man movie but canceled it in July 2023 citing budget concerns. It left Mattel looking for a new studio and Amazon became its real life white knight.

Amazon sensed strong parallels with Marvel's hugely-successful Thor films which put Chris Hemsworth on the map. The first film in the Thor series sees the god of thunder exiled from his fabled home of Asgard to earth where he is forced to learn humility. On finding his magical hammer there he is given back his godly powers and returns to his home planet to protect it from an attack by his wayward brother, played by British actor Tom Hiddleston.

Similarly, the trailers released so far for Masters of the Universe show Galitzine playing Adam Glenn, a bored London office-worker who has memories of an earlier life on the mythical planet of Eternia. He too manages to return there and when he grabs his magical sword of Grayskull it transforms him into his brawny alter ego who wears little more than a loin cloth and boots.

The trailers show that Eternia was once a vibrant alien-like world with multi-colored forests, massive mountains and fortresses with towering faces carved into their entrances. Like Asgard, it descends into chaos while He-Man is on earth so he has to put his powers to use to defend it. He even shares Thor's sidekick in the form of Elba who plays Man-At-Arms in Masters of the Universe and Heimdall in the Marvel movies.

They are joined by yet more British actors including James Purefoy and Charlotte Riley in the roles of Adam's parents, the rulers of Eternia. The British cast is no coincidence.

Masters of the Universe was made in the United Kingdom where studios get a reimbursement of up to 25.5% of the money they spend in the country. All they have to do is incur at least 10% of their core costs there and pass a points test proving their worth to the U.K.

The test is based on factors such as how many of the lead actors are from the U.K., how much filming was done in the U.K., the amount of U.K. content and how much it promotes the country’s heritage. Masters of the Universe passes with flying colors.

Not only does it have a brace of British stars but its lavish visuals were created by the U.K. division of Disney's Industrial Light & Magic effects house. The movie was shot at Amazon's Bray Studios just outside London and on location across the U.K. Wells Cathedral and the Beer Quarry Caves in south-west England double for Eternian castles while Adam works in London's Canary Wharf financial district. It shines a spotlight on the costs of the movie.

In order to demonstrate to the authorities that they meet the 10% minimum spending threshold, studios set up separate companies in the U.K. to produce each film they make there. Those companies are obliged to file legally-binding earnings releases which reveal everything from their total costs right down to the headcount and even the staff's social security payments.

The Amazon subsidiary behind Masters of the Universe is called Regal Leo UK Productions in a nod to He-Man's royal lineage and MGM's roaring lion logo. The company filed its first earnings release in September last year which revealed that the over the almost 11-month period to December 31, 2024, $52.1 million (£41.5 million) was spent on the production which "was in line with the budget."

Principal photography began in London a week after the date on the filings so the spending covers the pre-production period. One of the biggest single costs during this time was the $3.2 million (£2.5 million) spent on staff with the company having a monthly average of 55 employees.

That doesn't include freelancers, contractors and temporary workers as they aren't listed as employees on the books of U.K. companies even though they often represent the majority of the crew on a film shoot.

The reimbursement gave Amazon a helping hand as the filings reveal that Regal Leo UK Productions banked $11.8 million (£9.4 million) from the government bringing its net spending down to $40.3 million.

However, this is set to surge in its next earnings release as it will cover the year to the end of 2025. On June 15 2025, Galitzine confirmed on his Instagram account that the shoot had officially wrapped so the next filings will include the cost of filming and a lot of post-production which is when the majority of the costly visual effects will be added.

The $40.3 million also doesn't include marketing costs as they are spent by the studio rather than the production company. The $40.3 million is just the net production cost of the movie by the end of 2024 so it needs to gross at least that much in theaters in order to break even at the box office.

The share of the box office that theaters pay to studios is known in the trade as a rental fee and an indication of the typical level comes from film industry consultant Stephen Follows who interviewed 1,235 film professionals in 2014 and concluded that, according to studios, theaters keep 49% of the takings on average.

An approximate 50-50 split means that Masters of the Universe needs to gross $80.6 million at the very least for Amazon to cover its costs at the box office. That minimum threshold will of course need to rise in line with the cost of principal photography and post-production.

The $80.6 million is merely the first threshold that Masters of the Universe needs to cross in order to break even. Once it hits that level Amazon executives will be able to breathe a small sigh of relief but that's far from the end of the story.

Variety forecast that the movie's total budget would end up around $170 million and, if so, break even would come at a gross of around $340 million.

Masters of the Universe had its world premiere in Hollywood last week and early indications are extremely positive. However, according to Deadline it is set for a rather lowly $35 million start. It has huge potential as the title adds that the movie is likely to be a hit "with men over 25."

It will of course have a second chance of success when it hits Amazon's Prime Video after its theatrical run has ended. However, subscribers don't pay to watch specific movies and instead get access to all of them, along with the other content on Amazon Prime. This makes it difficult to say how much streaming revenue, and therefore profit, is generated by individual productions.

Then there are the toy sales which will undoubtedly get a boost from the new movie. That doesn't just benefit Mattel but also Amazon which gets a cut of all sales through its platform. Time will tell whether Masters of the Universe needs to rely on these additional revenue streams to make back its money or whether it has enough punching power to do it on its own in theaters.