Amazon Studios’ $170M He-Man Flop Is Still Prime Video’s Global #1 Movie After 2 Weeks
By the power of Amazon
Travis Knight’s Masters of the Universe reboot was one of 2026’s most expensive box office disappointments but has redeemed itself as a hugely successful streaming release. The Nicholas Galitzine-led fantasy action movie became the most-watched movie on Prime Video worldwide. The He-Man film climbed to No. 1 on the platform shortly after arriving, finding an audience it never managed to reach in theaters.
The movie was released on June 5. It opened to $29.4 million domestically across more than 3,600 locations before suffering a significant drop in its second weekend. Masters of the Universe ended its run with roughly $113 million worldwide against a reported $170 million budget. That left it with a disappointing run for such an expensive production.
Streaming has told a very different story. According to streaming tracker FlixPatrol, the movie topped the Prime Video chart in more than 25 countries on its first day and doubled that number the next, before taking the No. 1 spot on the platform’s worldwide movie chart. In doing so, it pushed Amazon’s own Project Hail Mary off the top.
Masters of the Universe Is the Latest Theatrical Flop to Find Streaming Success
Masters of the Universe is the first live-action feature based on the 80s cartoon series and action figure toy line since Dolph Lundgren’s 1987 cult classic. The 140-minute action-fantasy is still dominating the streaming chart more than two weeks after its debut. It briefly lost its hold on the top spot to low-budget shark movie, The Devil’s Mouth, but has now returned to the top of both the U.S. and global charts.
Despite holding a Certified Fresh rating from critics and scoring a strong 86% rating from audiences, Masters of the Universe followed in the footsteps of several other Amazon Studios releases in having to wait until it hit streaming to find success. Chris Hemsworth’s Crime 101 and the Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans movie Red One both finally discovered an audience on Prime Video.
For a studio that owns its own streaming service, a film that struggles at the box office can still deliver value once it reaches subscribers at no extra cost. The film’s streaming success has become a common theme in modern Hollywood, with theatrical releases no longer being the whole story for movie financials.
Masters of the Universe’s Theatrical Performance Does Not Matter
Many believed that, despite a pair of teasing post-credits scenes, the chances of a sequel had faded significantly after the film’s theatrical performance. Yet that is not how Amazon sees it. In a statement released by Amazon MGM Studios’ domestic distribution chief Kevin Wilson after the movie’s opening weekend, he made it clear that theatrical release has a single purpose for some of the company’s big movies.
“Travis Knight and the entire cast and filmmaking team have delivered something truly special,” Wilson said, “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.”
Amazon Studios is focused on bolstering subscriptions to Prime Video with big, expensive projects like Masters of the Universe or their Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series. The streaming performance of their He-Man reboot has proven that the plan is working.
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