Amazon has announced a streaming release date for Masters of the Universe. The live-action reboot will be available to Prime Video subscribers starting this Wednesday, on July 22, 2026.
The move to streaming comes less than two months after Sony Pictures and Amazon MGM’s He-Man adaptation was released in theaters. At the time of writing, the movie has grossed $113 million globally, just over half of its reported budget of around $200 million.
While it may not have exploded at the box office, we still had lots of praise for the reboot based on Mattel’s toy line. In his 8/10 review for IGN, Clint Gage praised Masters as a “film that appreciates the source material, silly names and all, and proves the best way to add to a 50-year-old franchise that’s about toys as much as anything else is to not take it too seriously.”
The 21st century take on Masters of the Universe introduced Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Adam/He-Man and Riverdale alum Camila Mendes as Teela, but a surprising standout performance for us was Jared Leto as Skeletor.
The movie did have some promising momentum before its release, with the most recent Star Wars project, Mandalorian and Grogu, pushed to the side of IMAX theaters in favor of the He-Man project. However, the live-action reboot struggled at the box office since its opening weekend, trailing behind a summer line-up dominated by lower budget horror hits like Obsession and Backrooms.
Mandalorian and Grogu, which will be released on digital platforms this week, hasn’t fared much better, at least in the grand scheme of Star Wars movies at the box office. Mortal Kombat II is yet another movie coming to streaming this week that has shared in recent box office woes.
With such a quick turnaround for getting the movie onto Prime Video, Amazon is seemingly now angling the reboot toward driving streaming subscriptions. It is possible the film gets a second chance at visibility on Prime, which currently boasts the most total subscribers of any streaming service.
Director Travis Knight, also the CEO of Laika Studios, mentioned he would be interested in expanding the reboot into a franchise during an interview back in May. However, there has been no updates on those franchise plans since Masters of the Universe was released in theaters.
In the meantime, Knight is tentatively set to direct an animated adaptation of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi under the Laika Studios banner. The animation studio is also releasing a new original film, Wildwood, this October.
Blythe (she/her) is an Audience Development Coordinator at IGN who spends way too much time in character customization screens and tracking down collectibles.
