{"id":628530,"date":"2026-06-09T02:52:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T02:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/628530\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T02:52:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T02:52:13","slug":"scary-movie-tops-box-office-masters-of-the-universe-stumbles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/628530\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Scary Movie’ Tops Box Office, ‘Masters of the Universe’ Stumbles"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOn today\u2019s episode of \u201cDaily Variety\u201d podcast, Variety\u2019s Brent Lang breaks down a busy weekend at the turnstiles as \u201cScary Movie\u201d <\/a>returned for its first installment in 13 years \u2013 and the first in 25 years with a Wayans at the helm. And it was a truly scary weekend for Amazon MGM Studios\u2019 \u201cMasters of the Universe,\u201d which stumbled in its opening weekend.<\/p>\n

\n\tLang noted that it was not a given that \u201cScary Movie<\/a>\u201d would resonate with contemporary audiences.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was a little surprising because I would have thought that the audience had kind of aged out of this,\u201d Lang said. \u201cBut then again, it\u2019s parody. It\u2019s parodying horror films, and horror films are more popular than they\u2019ve ever been. There\u2019s been a lot of material, you know, from \u2018Sinners\u2019 to \u2018Weapons\u2019 to \u2018The Purge\u2019 for them to really get into. So there\u2019s a lot of new stuff, new fodder. And I think clearly people want to laugh. And that\u2019s kind of exciting too, because maybe this will bring back R-rated comedies, which is a genre that Hollywood\u2019s really gotten out of the business of making. I\u2019m hopeful this will kind of bring people back to theaters if they want to laugh, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for \u201cMasters of the Universe,\u201d it was a big drop from \u201cBarbie,\u201d the 2023 smash that launched Mattel\u2019s new film stratey.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis is a real stumble. This is a movie that costs $200 million to make. So it was extremely expensive and it only it made less than $30 million. Now, at any other studio that would be a cause of great panic and consternation,\u201d Lang says. \u201cThis is a little different because Amazon does have this have a streaming platform, and they say they assess the results of their films differently, that they\u2019re trying to drive viewers to Prime Video. That said, people don\u2019t greenlight movies for $200 million expecting an opening like this. And I think the property was just very old. I mean, I\u2019m in my 40s and \u2018Masters of the Universe\u2019 was a big thing when I was a kid. So I\u2019m not sure younger people really felt a sense of urgency to go see this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tListen to Daily Variety<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0iHeartPodcasts<\/a>,\u00a0Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Variety\u2019s\u00a0YouTube Podcast<\/a>\u00a0channel,\u00a0Amazon Music<\/a>,\u00a0Spotify<\/a>\u00a0and other podcast platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On today\u2019s episode of \u201cDaily Variety\u201d podcast, Variety\u2019s Brent Lang breaks down a busy weekend at the turnstiles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[59088,96,2839,12662,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-628530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-daily-variety","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-scary-movie","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}