The finished product very nearly wasn’t finished.
Almost immediately, the film’s crew found themselves behind schedule. Even with the more mundane locations on Earth and the reduced budget Cannon Films had planned for, Masters of the Universe would be a special effects driven movie. Especially in the mid–1980s, this was a costly and laborious process that took plenty of time. There was also the matter of set and costume designs, needed to represent the alien and varied nature of the Eternian creatures and characters. Sci-fi/fantasy films with such a scope required a year of pre-production work, minimum, before the camera even began rolling. Masters was given two months.
Complicating matters further, the script still wasn’t finalized when filming began. Director Gary Goddard had expanded the film’s story to include Eternian settings as well as those on Earth, but how much they’d have the time to film, let alone the money to design, was up in the air. As everyone involved began feeling the crunch, many ideas were left by the wayside. The story was streamlined to make filming move faster, and an entire sequence or two were dropped.
Early into production, Goddard scrapped a plan for He-Man and his friends to take a more circuitous route back into Castle Grayskull for the finale. Instead of the hotwired Cosmic Key sending the group directly into the throne room, they would appear outside the castle’s walls. After spotting Snake Mountain in the distance, the group would utilize the network of caves beneath Grayskull to sneak back inside, as they had in the first act. It would not be an easy trip this time. The caverns were due to be full of Snake Men, who had joined with Skeletor’s forces once he’d taken control of the planet. As Goddard recalled the sequence: “The heroes are dragged into the tunnels and a lot of action takes place amid the tension of them trying to escape from the caverns.”1
After defeating the Snake Men, the group of heroes would find themselves in Grayskull’s dungeon, where more members of He-Man’s resistance had been imprisoned by Skeletor. This would include new characters to be used in future toy lines, named in the script as Wizaroid, Blastar, Mandroid, Nettor, and Mirroman. Also due to be included, as a treat for fans, He-Man’s sister She-Ra. “I was disappointed when She-Ra was cut,” said production designer William Stout.2 He had designed a new costume for her, which Goddard and many on the crew were excited to see on screen.
These last-minute additions would bolster He-Man’s crew when they engaged Skeletor’s troops in the throne room, and make for a more epic battle scene. The scenes and characters were cut from the script as filming was beginning, which took some weight off of the production teams. Their removal likely improved the pacing of the finished product, as well. With no detours or important characters added late into the story, the heroes show up quickly to save He-Man and keep the plot moving along smoothly. This also kept the movie from appearing like too much of a toy commercial.
Another alteration to the script cost the film a reference to the franchise’s other incarnations. In the depths of Castle Grayskull, Earthlings Kevin and Julie would’ve been shown an American flag. They would’ve been told that Eternians were descended from the NASA astronauts who came to the planet in their future. This would be shocking for the characters but familiar to audiences who had already seen this explained in the comic books, or the Paul Dini written He-Man and the Masters of the Universe episode “Teela’s Quest.” Goddard was not overly fond of the American flag reveal, saying he’d already seen such a thing done on Star Trek.
Introducing the element of time travel at this point could have established the full power of the Cosmic Key for the film’s conclusion. This scene was likely dropped later in production, as it appears in Marvel’s Star Comics adaptation.
Such cuts and alterations were necessary to keep production costs down and shorten filming time. Losing the American flag and the battle with the Snake Men helped things, but it wouldn’t be enough.
Pre-production was still underway as filming began. In order to give Stout and his production team time to complete their costumes and set construction, Goddard began filming the Earth sequences first. They started where He-Man and his allies landed in the forest, as it required no sets. Everything in the massive throne room set was saved for last, and it was still barely completed in time. “I was designing to the last week of shooting,” Stout lamented.3
William Stout’s design for a live-action She-Ra. She was omitted from the film to the disappointment of all. (Courtesy William Stout.)
The two months’ head start the designers had was not nearly enough, but it was more than was allotted for the special effects. The SFX cinematographer Richard Edlund, Academy Award winner and founder of Boss Film Corp., estimated their working time at seven weeks.
According to Edlund, Cannon Films had grossly underestimated the budget for such an effects-heavy film. The script revisions almost doubled the number of SFX shots Boss Film Corp. had signed up for. This, in turn, pushed the budget higher. “Well, it was originally placed as a $15 million production,” Edlund said, “but it went about half-again over that.”4
With a rising budget and a production struggling to keep up with their deadlines, Golan and Globus began turning up the pressure on their first-time director.
Cannon Films was under pressure, as well. Goddard said he later learned that, as they were filming, the company was mere months away from filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.5 Every delay in filming, every extra SFX shot, every move that wasn’t pinching pennies or cutting corners were moves that were costing money Golan and Globus didn’t have to spend. All they wanted was a finished product to release, fast, to make enough money to continue rolling along.
Desperation was also mounting for Mattel. They started the wheels of a live-action He-Man film in 1985, when the franchise was still in its golden age, but that age was quickly coming to an end. On the air, Filmation’s He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon was only airing in reruns. The episodes were under siege from competitors like Transformers and GI Joe, other cross-media brands who had learned their tricks from the Most Powerful Man in the Universe. Ratings were beginning to slide.
Comparatively, toy sales were in an all-out freefall. As the toy lines expanded to include more figures and more expensive vehicles and playsets with each successive wave, Mattel had begun shipping more and more figures to toy stores, anticipating the demand would continue its exponential growth. In Mastering the Universe, Roger Sweet blamed the downfall of the brand on “all of those product-loaded pallets that were dumped on all of those toy store shelves.”6
After years of under-shipping their toy lines, causing an often frenzied demand, the company overcorrected just as disinterest was setting in, or perhaps causing that colder response. Suddenly, there was too much He-Man on the shelves. Stores began cutting prices just to get some free space for other merchandise. Needless to say, this volume-driven method was not winning the company any friends in the world of retail. While they were struggling and losing money to sell off their Masters of the Universe stock, the demand for toys like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were rising.
Toy stores weren’t the only ones growing frustrated with Mattel’s sales tactics. Parents, even the ones who never considered the Filmation cartoon to be mere marketing, began complaining about the waves of Masters of the Universe adding more and more figures along with the expensive playsets. There were more toys for children to clamor for, and the costs were adding up to the adults holding the checkbooks.
This was pushed even further in 1986 when the company rebranded its ’70s novelty item “Slime.” One playset for the He-Man wave of that year was Hordak’s Slime Pit, a spooky and fairly cheap set-up where kids could trap a figure in place and dump the bright green gunk over their heads. Each playset came with a can of Slime to use. The Slime, however, was not available for sale on its own. If children wanted more, they would need to have their folks buy a new Slime Pit, or buy two new Masters of the Universe figures at $6 each to get a “free” can. The Slime was treated as an extraneous add-in to the figures instead of the thing consumers really wanted.
As the grown-ups grumbled, marketing experts began to chime in. Michael Kamins, an assistant marketing professor at USC, said “They’re positioning it as a bonus, clouding the issue. It’s not really a bonus, and as a strategy, it’s manipulative. You only need a can of Slime, and you have to buy two figures to get it.”7
For all the money Mattel made on their “free” Slime, they ended up paying plenty out, as well. After accidents occurred while children played with the goop, “many Slime-soiled carpets were bought at Mattel’s expense.”8 Paying to replace carpets didn’t endear the company with parents, though. For many, they’d had just about enough of He-Man.
After an amazing sales year in 1986, grossing over $400 million, in 1987, sales plummeted to just $7 million.9
With a laugh, Goddard recalled the day Mattel executives showed up at the set. They frantically pulled the director into a room and told him about the disastrous toy sales. Now, everything depended to the film being successful; if he made them a hit action movie, they’d see the bump in their sales of the next Masters of the Universe wave, and He-Man would be saved. Goddard took the opportunity to remind the executives of their stringent rules.
“And I said, ‘Well, we’re doing the best we can. But you know, we’re also trying to obey all these rules…’ And one of them goes, ‘We don’t care what you do! We don’t care what you do! Have him kill people! Have blood, guts, gore, sex! Do whatever you have to, just make sure this movie is a hit!’”10
As the young director did his best, Mattel’s ambitions were also being stymied on another front. According to Mattel’s Joe Morrison, “What was it like dealing with Cannon? Those guys were crazy. And they were running out of money.”11
According to some, the 50/50 deal worked out between the two companies called for Mattel to pay for their half of production first. This amount covered much of the preproduction and the beginning of filming. It didn’t last long. As William Stout remembered, “So Mattel said, ‘Okay, it’s time for you to kick in that second half,’ and Cannon said, ‘No.’”12
Morrison disputed this. “Contrary to some beliefs,” he said, “Mattel never put up any money for the film. But what we did do was this: I can’t remember the exact figure overall, but it was either a million or a half-million that Cannon paid us as a rights fee. But whatever it was, they had only paid us half up front.”13 When funds were running short and things began to grind to a halt, the executives had to waive payments for the rights fee so Cannon could have enough money to continue.
Whatever assistance Mattel had given, the film’s future was far from certain. “There were shooting weeks when the crew threatened to stop because money was not in the bank to cover their checks,” Goddard said. He would call Golan and Globus and plead with the crew to wait until the end of the day before quitting, “and in the end—the money did come through.”14 With the crew growing disillusioned, Goddard tried his best to keep the cast from learning about the film’s rocky financial footing. The last thing he wanted was his actors, several of whom were fairly untrained, worrying about getting paid instead of focusing on their performances.
The money Cannon Films was spending on Masters of the Universe is another issue altogether. Just as the studio used the occasional profitable film to cover its losses on the others, it would also use money earmarked on other projects for whatever else needed funds.
Cash for all projects were communal in nature, treated like a pot the producers could dip their hands into as required. Because of this, listed budgets for Cannon movies vary slightly from source to source. These vagaries in accounting were also exacerbated by more substantial communication breakdowns. At times even Globus would not be aware of the film projects his cousin was financing from the studio’s communal pot. The numbers were all a bit squirrelly, which was another factor that led to the SEC’s investigation.15
Much of the money in the company’s coffers at this point came from Warner Brothers. Looking for another bankable name for their next attempt at a surefire blockbuster, Cannon Films paid Ilya and Alexander Salkind to sublet their cinematic rights to the Superman character. After the disastrous reception of Salkind’s last two Superman projects, 1983’s Richard Pryor vehicle Superman III and 1984’s Supergirl, the producers were happy to get money without needing to risk making another installment themselves. Instead, Cannon would pay them for the privilege of taking such a risk. And if, by chance, “the public had grown tired of the series, Cannon would absorb any losses.”16 The deal, worth $5 million, was happily signed over one of Golan and Globus’s infamous trips to Cannes.
Recent box office dentings aside, Superman was still a respected and marketable brand name. Cannon’s own Superman film could draw on the worldwide recognition, but the producers knew they’d need the “real” Superman to lend their installment credibility. Christopher Reeve had hung up his tights by this point, so dissatisfied with the production of Superman III he dropped out of a planned cameo in Supergirl. But living in the Man of Steel’s shadow was tough, and he was having trouble finding the funding for a gritty journalist film he wanted to make. Cannon talked him into reprising his most famous role by promising to fund the dream project, 1987’s Street Smart, and by allowing him a great deal of creative control over Superman IV’s script. He was given a “Story By” credit, as he ensured the film would revolve around the important real-world problem of nuclear proliferation.
Warner Brothers paid out $40 million to Cannon to make the film, and the Superman project immediately began a nosedive. The cash was grabbed up by the 30 other movies in production until less than half was left to go toward what it was intended for. By generous estimates, the budget for Superman IV: The Quest for Peace became $17 million.
The impact was immediately felt. Experienced crew members were fired and replaced with cheap, inexperienced Israelis. The money for special effects was slashed, leaving visible wires for flight and the same blue screen shots repeated over and over throughout. Filming was restricted to the Cannon-owned Elstree Studios, north of London, and the production took a short trip up the M1 in an attempt to make Milton Keyes double as New York City.
Everyone involved was growing frustrated, but none more so than Christopher Reeve. He could see the “important” film he set out to make falling apart as its budget evaporated. Despite everything Warner Brothers had contributed, suddenly the filmmakers couldn’t afford to do much of anything. “They’re coach tourists who want first-class service,” Reeve said of Golan and Globus. “They’ll nickel-and-dime you on paper clips.”17
Though the actual accounting numbers aren’t available to confirm, it has been generally accepted that much of Superman IV’s money went toward keeping Masters of the Universe afloat. It’s impossible to know for sure, as Cannon Films was going bankrupt and they had so many films in the works at the time, but Masters was the only other bigger budget production at that same time. They would be released within two weeks of each other.
Masters of the Universe was in the last phase of filming, the sequences inside of the massive Eternian throne room set, when the threats began. Golan and Globus told the crew to begin wrapping things up. The production would be coming to a close, Cannon said, whether they were done filming or not.
William Stout’s storyboards from a deleted sequence early in the film, which would’ve been the first introduction to He-Man. (Courtesy William Stout.)
The only thing remaining was the climactic battle itself. Things had already been streamlined by Man-At-Arms, Teela, Gwildor, and the humans appearing in the middle of the throne room, but more trimming needed to be done to finish in time. The crew did their best to rush through the effects-heavy shoot-out scene. In an effort to hurry things along, Goddard devised a big show of strength from He-Man, something genuinely super-heroic to make up for less screen time spent on the battle. The Most Powerful Man in the Universe would now push over one of the giant throne room statues, scattering Skeletor’s troops. It would work as an impressive moment, hopefully wowing the audience enough to not mind the story skipping ahead to He-Man and Skeletor’s climactic duel.
Their “final battle,” as Langella’s Skeletor proclaims it, had already gone through several changes. In earlier drafts of the script, Odell had the two battle their way out of the throne room, onto a landing pad, and then onto the rooftops of the capital city of Eternos. In another draft, as evidenced by the depiction in the Star Comics adaptation,18 the two wind up on the roof of Castle Grayskull. Standing atop the skull of Grayskull, Skeletor kneels and feigns surrender, only to hurl He-Man over the side. The hero clings for dear life as Skeletor cries out, “Now I am master of the universe!”
Suddenly, Skeletor is struck by a rock. In the panel itself, it’s difficult to trace the origin of this action. The way the motion and impact lines of Mike Zeck’s artwork merge, it could be a chunk of Grayskull, broken free by He-Man and thrown upward. The panel before, it does appear our hero’s hand is grasping for something. More likely, however, is that the rock was thrown from behind. Evil-Lyn, the spurned second-in-command, is visible behind Skeletor, in the perfect position to throw. This would certainly complete her character arc as witnessed in the film: after giving everything to Skeletor and finding herself an eternal runner-up to his ambition, instead of taking the henchmen and escaping, she sucker-punches him once he’s finally gotten everything he wanted.
As Skeletor falls forward, down the face of Grayskull, He-Man reaches out and catches him. He-Man hangs there, holding his enemy, and says that now that the war is over, perhaps they can make peace between them. “Keep your peace!” Skeletor responds. “Keep your mercy!” And he lets himself fall into the pits below Grayskull’s jaw-bridge.
It’s clear to see why this climax was changed in the script stage of the project. A fight across the top of Castle Grayskull would require another large set, complete with a blue screen backdrop to portray the alien night sky of Eternia. Having the characters hanging from the side of a massive building would cause problems of its own, as well. In the finished film, we only get one view of the castle from the outside, and it’s clearly a matte painting. All of the Grayskull scenes take place inside the castle, in that one soundstage. Even for a production that was less cash-strapped than Masters, such a sequence would be very difficult.
Early on, Goddard changed the finale to be resolved inside the throne room to save money and design time. As Skeletor’s master plan now revolved around “the Great Eye of the galaxy” and the circular portal behind Grayskull’s throne, that became the instrument of his demise. After the one-on-one fight with He-Man, Skeletor would be pushed back through the portal and consumed by the powers of the universe he was trying to master.
As the filmmakers’ clock was counting down, this elaborate annihilation for their villain was jettisoned. There wasn’t much time to find a replacement, though.
By this point, Cannon had given the production a one-day notice. Get the shots finished and turn out the lights, because the set was getting shut down. The problem was there was much more than one day’s left of material to film. The crew hunkered down and tried to get as much done as they would be allowed to.
“I knew we were running short on time,” the director recalled. “I told the [director of photography], ‘I want you to basically kill the lights on the soundstage and just let them fade to darkness.’” The new idea to save time would be to film the fight under dimmer lighting, not showing off the massive throne room set and the dozens of extras in armor. The camera would not require such timely set-ups and the crew could film more in less time. As Goddard envisioned it, He-Man’s Power Sword meets Skeletor’s Havoc Staff, and “the power [of the clash] is so much that it saps the power from everything and then we’re in this dark void, and that’s where I can do whatever I got to do to get us to the end.”19
As the lights faded, effects were added for the sword to shine a blinding blue-white while Skeletor’s staff crackled with his stolen cosmic energy. Abbreviating the action called for an additional special effects shot, another one Boss Film hadn’t signed up for. The budget ticked upward slightly once again.
Fight choreographer Anthony De Longis, who was standing in for Frank Langella as Skeletor’s fight double, worked with Lundgren to throw together a quick routine. In the dark, in Skeletor’s bulky golden costume and vision-restricting helmet, De Longis struggled to make the action look good. “I literally couldn’t see the stairs or the ground where I was fighting,” he said. Between the leather-soled boots and a slippery film left on the ground from the smoke machines, “it was like fighting on an ice precipice.”20
The set was kept dim and misty, illuminated by a spinning color wheel in the background. The expensive throne room was barely visible in the sequence. The two fighters did not utilize much of the soundstage’s space, either. “It’s a shame,” Stout said, “because I had really designed that set for sword fighting. I made sure there were ups and downs and over and unders and all kinds of ways it could be used to get most out of this battle.”21
But there simply wasn’t the time. After filming “random battle footage” for about three hours, the Masters of the Universe was shut down.
“They weren’t going to let us shoot the final battle,” the director said. “How can you have an ending without that final battle between He-Man and Skeletor?”22
Goddard’s completed footage showed He-Man battling Skeletor in the darkened room. Then the hero gets the upper hand and cuts through the golden Havoc Staff. That was it. The film would pick back up in the throne room with a restored Sorceress and there would be no mention of Skeletor. There was no actual resolution to their epic confrontation between good and evil. The people from Cannon Films appeared to be more concerned with getting the film released than finished.
According to Goddard, “At one point, the Cannon guys, Golan and Globus, said, ‘It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, you know? They’ll fight. They’ll just fight, and then we’ll just fade out.’”23
Not giving up, the young director kept after the studio to let him finish the picture. After three or four months they acquiesced, but with a condition: Goddard would need to put up the money. “I can laugh now but it was not so funny then,” he said.24
A new finale was devised, something they could shoot in one day’s time. It would be quick and not particularly elegant, but it could tie all of the footage together and have the hero dispatch the villain.
According to Goddard: “Cannon still owed me $100,000 per my contract. The shoot was going to cost just a little over that. They said, ‘You put up $50k from your salary and we will match it.’ I couldn’t believe it. I said, ‘This is YOUR movie—and there is NO ENDING.’ But they were serious so I said yes. So they kept 50K of my salary, matched it, and we got that day I needed to finish the movie.”25
The cameras quickly rolled for the one last sequence, Skeletor drained of his cosmic power and attempting to trick He-Man into letting his guard down. There would be no time or resources for the villain to be sucked out of the circular portal, so Goddard settled for having him fall into one of the giant pits in the throne room. They had been there the whole time via matte paintings, so it was a fairly seamless correction. It did lead to another unfortunate Star Wars comparison, though, as Skeletor’s fall looks a lot like that of The Emperor in 1983’s Return of the Jedi.
With the additional day of filming finished, Cannon had enough to cut together into a full, complete film that Goddard was happy to put his name on. “I was just pleased that we ended up with a beginning, middle and end,” Stout said. “That was kind of a shock to me, because I wasn’t sure we had that.”26
However cash-strapped, Cannon Film’s self-promotional machines raged on. Golan and Globus advertised Masters of the Universe at the Cannes Film Festival that year with large banners, as proud of it as they were of the more artistic faire they were debuting, including Barfly and Tough Guys Don’t Dance. Whenever asked, and frequently when they weren’t, the producers said Masters would be “the Star Wars of the ’80s.”27 Other marketing Cannon investigated, such as corporate tie-ins with Sunshine Hydrox cookies and Burger King, never materialized. Still, the film prominently displays Burger King cups and wrappers in one scene.
Mattel chipped in where they could, with advertising the film through a contest on action figure packaging, and with coverage in the monthly He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Magazine. The Masters of the Universe comic book rights had since changed from DC to Marvel’s Star Comics line. The new series would be ending with issue 13 in 1987, they would also release a one-shot comic book adaptation of the movie.
The sixth wave of action figures would tie-in as well, offering plastic versions of Gwildor, Saurod, and Blade. The latter made a curious addition to the previous figures, as instead of brightly colored and animal themed, he was covered in chain mail and knives. The toys took longer to make than movie did, leading to some interesting discrepancies. Saurod, in particular, translated poorly from Stout’s detailed costume in the bright, blocky plastic. That figure came with an action feature, the ability for sparks to be formed from its mouth to simulate firing lasers, which was likely an aspect of the character featured in much earlier drafts. The prototype of the Blade figure shown in advertisements had a muzzle-like grill over his mouth, also from an earlier design sketch, but this was corrected by the time the figure was released. Although it would not be made to resemble actor Anthony De Longis, it would at least look like the correct costume.
Packaged with the figures was a minicomic called “The Cosmic Key,” which introduced variations of the movie-originated characters who had been turned into toys. While it featured the Key, those characters, and Skeletor becoming more powerful thanks to supernatural forces, the plot had almost nothing to do with that of the film. As one of the last minicomics produced, a mere six pages in length. This was less than half as long as the usual. The storytelling was muddled as a result.
The action figure of Gwildor from the Masters of the Universe film was one of the last in the original run. (Photograph by Rachael Layne.)
To coincide with the film’s release, Mattel also released a game titled Masters of the Universe: The Movie for 8-bit systems like Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64. The same year, two other He-Man games came out, though they had no connection to the live-action film. Masters of the Universe: The Arcade Game and Masters of the Universe: The Super Adventure were styled after the toy line and animated series, but they still boosted the brand name’s signal as it struggled to expand into the new medium.
In theaters, the first teaser trailer proclaimed, “There is a place where legends are born, where the light confronts the dark … a world of incredible mystery, magic, and adventure … a world where colossal powers will collide in a battle to control the universe!” The words were matching by images of Lundgren as He-Man, well-oiled in a dark and misty room, swinging the massive Power Sword. This was intercut with a rapidly advancing camera movement toward the planet Earth, which then exploded.
The full promotional trailer emphasized the film’s cosmic adventure and invasion of Earth, with red screaming laser bolts, explosions, or a sword clash in nearly every shot. As with the teaser trailer, the identities of the characters almost seem obscured. Due to the costume revisions and other design liberties taken by Stout and his crew, there is nothing to signify the people on the screen as representing the cartoons on the TV, or the toys on the shelves. It appears to be just another space opera/action flick until at the end, when the narrator booms, “Dolph Lundgren is He-Man! Frank Langella is Skeletor! Only they have the powers to be … Masters of the Universe!”
The film was released on August 7, 1987, but it lacked the grand premiere its animated forefather managed. There were no He-Man hot air balloons this time around. Those involved in the Masters production were left to buy their own theater ticket. “I expected a cast and crew screening, but Cannon didn’t give us one,” Stout recalled. “I thought they were punishing us, but then later I’d found out, no, they were just bankrupt.”28
Cannon Film’s financial difficulties hampered advertising, and the toy line’s drastically declining sales didn’t guarantee the audience numbers Mattel had been counting on. As the companies looked on hopefully, both needing a hit, many in the cast and crew didn’t have their hopes up. Teela actress Chelsea Field remembered going to the theater opening night and being excited to see her face on the big screen. She said, “of course we all hoped it was going to be a big hit, but I think by then we all had a feeling that it wasn’t gonna do very well.”29
Masters of the Universe grossed a lackluster $4,883,168 its opening weekend, a weekend noted for less than impressive ticket sales all around. It came in third, behind the crime comedy Stakeout and the James Bond film, The Living Daylights.
While audiences were largely disinterested, critics were mostly unimpressed. Though praising the makeup and costumes, Variety dismissed Masters as a “Conan—Star Wars hybrid ripoff.” The review stated, “The Epitome of Good takes on the Epitome of Evil for nothing less than the future of the Universe, and the result is a colossal bore.”30 The closest the New York Times came to a compliment was “If you liked the toy, you’ll love the movie.”31
Perhaps none were harsher than the Washington Post’s Rita Kempley. In her write-up, she also referenced the similarities to Star Wars and other successful franchises. “Unlike the characters in the Superman movies,” she wrote, “[He-Man and Skeletor] lack humor and motivation…. Little kids at play have come up with craftier plots, better characterization and conceivably more spectacular effects—provided their mothers let them play with matches.”32
Not all reviews were negative, though. The Chicago Tribune complimented Masters’ “visual wit” and singled out Goddard as “effective at getting these quirkier bits on film.”33 The costumes and designs, along with Goddard’s directing, garnered recognition in the scattered positive articles. Generally received as a special effects movie, most weren’t blown away by the special effects. The film was lambasted by many for a perceived lack of originality in the story, along with Lundgren’s thick accent.
Goddard expressed disappointment in the quick rejections from some reviewers, though said he wasn’t too surprised: “I knew going in that this was based on a toy. When something is based on a toy, critics have a built in resistance to it and you’re going to get those comparisons.”34
Still, Masters also received some recognition from more genre-specific organizations. The film received a nomination for Best Film from Portugal’s Fantasporto festival, and won its International Fantasy Film Award for Best Special Effects. It was nominated for Saturn Awards for Best Science Fiction Film, Best Costumes, and Best Special Effects from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films. While it lost in these categories, direct Gary Goddard was awarded the group’s Silver Scroll Award for Outstanding Achievement. Billy Barty was nominated for Worst Supporting Actor at that year’s Golden Raspberry Awards, but lost to David Mendenhall, the child actor featured in Cannon’s Stallone film Over the Top.
The first-live action movie based on an action figure was largely greeted with confusion and derision, most based mainly on the fact of its adaptation. Movies based on books or TV shows was one thing, but a toy line was seen as too simplistic to support a real film. It was a concept that would become the norm in another two decades, with the debut of Michael Bay’s Transformers, but it was too bizarre for the critics at the time. As for consumers, the iron had cooled too much before the film could strike it. Audiences showed up weakly at first, and their numbers dwindled. Certified as a box office bomb, Masters of the Universe was pulled from theaters after three weeks. It had managed to gross just over $17 million dollars, failing to recoup its adjusted budget of $22 million.