Masters of the Universe Trailer Shows a Risky Choice Paying Off

Based on the recent trailer, the live-action Masters of the Universe movie appears to be learning a great lesson from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

Director Travis Knight and Amazon MGM Studios’ Masters of the Universe will be released in theaters this summer. Based on the iconic multimedia franchise of the same name, the movie stars Nicholas Galitzine as He-Man, Camila Mendes as Teela, Idris Elba as Duncan/Man-At-Arms, Jared Leto as Skeletor, and more.

What lesson does the Masters of the Universe trailer learn from Honor Among Thieves?

The recently released Masters of the Universe trailer shows that the movie isn’t afraid to lean into the inherent goofiness of the premise. While the original show has a huge fanbase, it’s also a silly sci-fi premise that is inherently fun. There’s an evil skull-faced villain, a giant battle cat, and more. There’s a good number of people who didn’t grow up watching He-Man and only know the character from the HEYYEYAAEYAAAEYAEYAA memes.

Other movies adapting beloved pop culture items have made the mistake of taking the matter too seriously in order to appease the fans. Some of the Transformers or live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films, for example, were way too stone-faced for their own good, while the 2000 Dungeons & Dragons movie or 2016’s Assassin’s Creed also failed to understand why people were interested in these properties in the first place.

The gold standard for how to do this correctly might just be Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Similar in tone to something like Guardians of the Galaxy, that movie understood that it could include lore and Easter eggs that appeal to the fans while also being a light, relatively carefree adventure that anyone and everyone can enjoy.

There’s no guarantee that Masters of the Universe will be a good movie just because it’s taking this tone — we’ve seen that go wrong with something like 2024’s Borderlands, for example. But the tone set in the trailer for Knight’s movie is far more inviting than if they had tried to make a dark, gritty He-Man movie. So far, Masters of the Universe is looking promising.

Masters of the Universe will be released in United States theaters on June 5, 2026.

Originally reported by Brandon Schreur at SuperHeroHype.

Source: Comingsoon.net