2026's First True Summer Blockbuster Fantasy Dominates the Box Office

When Tim Burton's Batman broke box-office records in 1989, Hollywood decided that audiences were hungry for movies featuring pulp comic book characters. This explains the existence of Darkman, Dick Tracy, The Crow, and The Phantom. When Michael Bay's Transformers became a summer smash, Hasbro plunged headfirst into film production and made movies such as Battleship and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. And now, after the success of Barbie, we're getting film adaptations of Mattel properties such as the upcoming Matchbox: The Movie and this week's Masters of the Universe. All of this is to say that Hollywood often learns the wrong lessons from success. It's still unclear if Masters of the Universe is a gamble that's going to pay off, especially since the market has very clearly pivoted from boomers to zoomers in recent times.