When the advertisements for 2026’s Masters of the Universe first started happening, my immediate thought was, “Who’s asking for this?” “MOTU” is a well-known property for sure, but no one has really been screaming to bring it back. It’s actually had several revival attempts over the years, but none of them really took hold. Neither did this one. Despite some fair to positive reviews, it’s set to lose money at the box office, and not a small amount either.
This should be a wake-up call that the film and television industries are reviving the wrong franchises in the wrong ways.
The Problem Goes Beyond Masters of the Universe
If it were just He-Man and his merry followers and villains, I wouldn’t be talking about this. Part of the inspiration for this writing was reading that Amazon is prepping a live-action Jem and the Holograms series. We already had that failure in 2015 with the live-action film.
Speaking of Hasbro properties, remember the G.I. Joe film reboot, Snake Eyes from 2021? Probably not, considering how hard that bombed as well. But G.I. Joe, Jem, and Masters of the Universe all have more in common besides being box office disasters.
These three properties all had a peak of popularity in the early to mid 1980s. G.I. Joe is a mild exception to that, considering the toy franchise existed long before the ’80s cartoon did. But when people think of G.I. Joe, they think of the ’80s cartoon. That was when their popularity not only peaked, but it ended. Yes, there were revivals of these shows in subsequent years. Masters of the Universe has had several of them, but none of them had any legs to really carry them.
Because of that, the people these shows and toys (since those were integral to these franchises) appealed to are of a very specific age. Most of these shows only ran for two to three years in their original airings. That means the biggest fan base would’ve been kids around the age of 8 – 12. Give or take a year or two. Reruns would’ve had to compete with newer shows at the time, cutting down the drawing in of new fans. So really, these franchises only have fan bases that are pretty isolated demographically. If you were 10 in 1985, then congratulations, you’re in your 50’s now.
Looking at Actually Successful Franchises
Compare this to something like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or The Transformers (yes, the original animated series had a “The” in the title). The original Ninja Turtles cartoons ran from 1987 to 1996. It also had three films during that time period (two of them good) and multiple successful video games. So, when it came time for another animated series in 2003, it wasn’t so far removed from when it was still popular. It also had a much larger fanbase because the original series was active for so long. Sure enough, the second animated run lasted until 2009 and set the stage for more series and films.
The Transformers had similar success because of a strong initial cartoon run and a toy series that kicked ass. The dynamic transformations of Transformers figures gave them a larger appeal than the military-themed G.I. Joe. Even when the original cartoon series ended in 1987, the toys were popular enough to keep the franchise in the zeitgeist. When Beast Wars: Transformers hit the air in 1996, it revitalized the series with a strongly written cartoon and another popular toy line. This is partly why the Michael Bay-directed series of films did so well for themselves. The fan base was still there and had cultivated a stronger following over the years.
No one can say that about Jem and the Holograms. The only people keeping that show alive were the initial fans, and that’s it. And when Hasbro and Universal Pictures partnered to produce and distribute a Jem movie, they botched it. They didn’t make a film that catered to the fans. They tried to turn it into something new to appeal to a broader audience. The broader audience didn’t give a shit about Jem and the Holograms, though, and the existing fanbase felt betrayed.
More and More Failures
That’s part of the reason why the 2017 Power Rangers film fell flat. Instead of trying to replicate the campy fun of the original series, the movie went all in on a grittier tone with flawed, troubled teenagers. That’s not what anybody wanted, especially the original fans. Doesn’t help that it had a story written by the same team that would later do Morbius and Madame Web. The film missed the mark entirely by not playing to its built-in audience and their expectations. Having a budget of around $100 million was the final nail in the coffin when it only made back $145 million.
This brings us back to the recent Masters of the Universe. This script at least knew what it was going for and knew the intended audience. For whatever reason, Amazon and its production partners seriously overestimated the audience size. How else can you justify a $200 million budget for a movie about He-Man? They really must’ve thought the love for this franchise was a lot bigger than what it was. Sure, it has a sense of awareness about it. Awareness doesn’t mean affection, though. As discussed earlier, the popularity of Masters of the Universe was limited to a very niche group. Certainly not a group large enough to justify this grandiose production budget.
Let’s reframe it like this. The X-Files is one of the most beloved pieces of genre television in the last 30-something years. The show ended its original run in 2002. Six years later, it got a follow-up film, The X-Files: I Want to Believe. The film barely made a profit, if at all, taking in around $68 million on a budget of $30 million. Why so low? Because even that gap of time was enough to cull the audience down to its core fans. The viewers who were watching the series because it was free on network television were gone. The people who just watched because it was part of pop culture were done.
Knowing What to Revive and How
What this all boils down to is that Hollywood needs a better grip on what should and shouldn’t be revived, and how to revive things. Several lingering intellectual properties out there that could use a shot in the arm if it were done the right way. A live-action Batman Beyond movie, for example. Keep the dark but not excessively edgy tone of the original cartoon and cast Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne. You’ve got a hit. Bring back Gravity Falls as a streaming mini-series as opposed to a film. What about the PBS series Wishbone? It wasn’t as well-known as other franchises, but you could do it as an animated series and market it to parents who grew up watching it.
This doesn’t include all the other franchise reboots and revivals that were just done the completely wrong way. Velma comes to mind. The CW even managed to botch up a revival of Legends of the Hidden Temple by completely changing the format of the show. All you had to do was redo the show exactly like it was before, but make it for adults. Missed opportunity! At the very least, you have King of the Hill, which knows EXACTLY what it’s doing and knocked it out of the park. It’s proof that revivals can work; you just have to know who you’re making it for and what you’re actually reviving.
