He-Man, and also the Masters of the Universe

Steevy Maximus

Well known pompous pontificator
Citizen
Still haven’t seen a Core Skeletor at retail, but my Target run did yield one of the new DC Premiere Batman figures from Mattel (See the DC Toys thread for my thoughts). But I did see a single card Man At Arms at Target, so that assortment is starting to get out there. Didn’t look too hard to see if the new He-Man variant was somewhere in the feature display, and Beast Man is a repack so I wouldn’t be able to tell one way or another.

I was tempted, but I just feel it in my bones that the 4 pack is going to be a Black Friday/Cyber Monday deal for, like, half the price. I don’t view the figures “sufficiently different” or “not different enough to bother me” so I’m still holding out for that.
 
LordGigaIce

LordGigaIce

Another babka?
Citizen
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LBD "Nytetrayn"

LBD "Nytetrayn"

Broke the Matrix
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
Platypus Prime said:
"You may think performance enhancing magic is the way to get the girls now, Adam, but your father thought the same thing, and let's remember what happened to him when the side effects caused those facial issues..."

(cut to Burger King commercials)
Click to expand...
Uncle.
 

Steevy Maximus

Well known pompous pontificator
Citizen

Steevy Maximus

Well known pompous pontificator
Citizen
www.facebook.com

Battle Ram Blog & He-Man.Org

Meet the Snake Men! In an early draft for the Masters of the Universe movie, the Snake Men played a part of the story. Concept artist Jerad S. Marantz created these illustrations for movie versions...
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I want those as toys! Give them to me, Mattel!


I kind of wonder if the early plan was to have the Snakemen be the "cannon fodder" to justify why Skeletor wasn't able to win prior the film's events?
 
ZacWilliam1

ZacWilliam1

Well-known member
Citizen
FINALLY got to see it yesterday.

I give it a B/B+

The tone was perfect. The casting was perfect.

The plot, action, music and visuals were all really good.

A few of the jokes didn't land for me. Maybe a 70 percent success rate there at best, but none of them was too egregious and the rest was so good it was easy to overlook that.

On the whole I liked it a lot.

ZacWilliam, Skeletor, Heman, Teela and Duncan were all stand out performances.
 

Steevy Maximus

Well known pompous pontificator
Citizen
What’s a He-Man line without a Castle Grayskull? Still not clear on if this is a legit Walmart exclusive (since I hear the actual presence of the brand at Walmart is…lacking), or just a timed exclusive deal. Either way, it’s available for preorder at Walmart and Toy Habits managed to find one at the E l Segundo Mattel store.
Here’s a massive pictorial/pseudo review of the “Battle for Eternia 2 in 1 Playset”
toyhabits.com

Masters of the Universe Battle For Eternia 2 in 1 Core Playset In Hand Review

Masters of the Universe Battle For Eternia 2 in 1 Core Playset in hand review with detailed photos and collector impressions.
toyhabits.com toyhabits.com

Still glad to see Mattel continue to offer a really solid value here, and for committing to playsets at all. I know that some would prefer a more “complete” representation of both, but given the market? I think Mattel found a nice compromise in this situation. Mattel is about the only one who still does meaningful playsets in this market (their 5” scale Star Command for Lightyear was also REALLY nice). Since I don’t think there’s going to be retail momentum to justify more than one big offering, I think Mattel played it smart incorporating both Grayskull and Snake Mountain, with provisions to play with each half independently or together.

I’m mildly disappointed that this Skeletor version is exclusive. The deco really pops, but barring a MASSIVE sale, I’m not sure I will have the space or funds to get this set just for a nice version of Skeletor.
Also amusing to me that, to date, both exclusive versions of Skeletor (the Amazon pack and Grayskull) and the Feature Figure all have cloth capes, while the single card releases each have a solid molded piece.
 

Steevy Maximus

Well known pompous pontificator
Citizen
Welp, guess the film is done at theatres. Despite some decent holdover (last few weekends, it has actually been grossing more than Mandalorian per week), Amazon/MGM decided to pull MOTU and Sheep Detectives from theaters last week to make way for Minions and Monsters. Mandalorian ended up losing about half of its screens, while Death of Robin Hood is still plugging around despite losing almost 90% of its screens. Sheep Detectives is already playing on Prime Video, while I think Masters will probably hit around the end of the month.
Amusingly, despite hitting over 4200 screens (maybe the biggest opening of the year, until Spider-Man or Avengers), the film struggled to gross more than Toy Story 5 in its 3rd weekend and, while equalling MOTU’s domestic gross, is probably still considered an underperformer given the MASSIVE marketing and huge screen rollout.

Right now (and the international numbers are prone to change, but probably not meaningfully), Masters of the Universe stands at $110.5 million worldwide, with the US domestic haul standing at $63 million (Hey, I was pretty close in that guess!). Amazon/MGM has played down that result, especially given their “streaming centric” business strategy. I think the future of this iteration of the franchise is going to be heavily dependent on the streaming numbers and how the ancillary revenue streams have or will perform. Mattel still seems confident in supporting the product range through the holidays, but my confidence is weakened by continued reports of many Walmart locations not stocking the brand at all, despite a number of exclusives.
MY observation has been relatively positive at the only store anywhere near me that stocks MOTU, Target. Stuff has sold, they aren’t drowning in inventory like with Star Wars, I saw remnants of wave 3 (indicating restocking is happening on a timely basis), and I still can’t easily locate a Core Skeletor IRL or online at retail price.

My HOPE is that, even if granted a more limited budget, Amazon/MGM lets Travis Knight do some sort of sequel. And preferably with a script he and his collaborators wrote rather than inheriting a passable one.
 

Steevy Maximus

Well known pompous pontificator
Citizen
I LIED! Or at least I made an incorrect assumption based on the data available from Box Office Mojo! Apparently, Amazon/MGM (or the person at BOM) were slow to update the charts, so Masters of the Universe IS still playing…for now. At least BOM didn’t error like they did last week and post that Minions had made $16 BILLION in its opening weekend :p. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one fooled-
In addition to the numerous OTHER post-mortems being posted, BOM themselves seemingly closed out the theatrical activity page at one point.

Nonetheless, the film loss over 50% of its screens (down to 920 screens), with weekend totals in the sub-$1 million range. The totals aren’t going to shift very far in the coming weekends. If Moana doesn’t push the film out, Spider-Man certainly will. Which would line up with the roughly 48 day mark before Sheep Detectives (itself still active) dropped onto Amazon Prime. The film seems on track to finish between $64 and $65 million, worldwide probably in the $113 million range.
 
The Predaking

The Predaking

Administrator
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
So, has anyone else had trouble finding figures at retail? Like Target had an end cap but only had four figures, the role paly toys, and a battle cat. Meanwhile, Walmart seems to be denying the toyline's very existence. I had easier time finding the 200X series toys....
 
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