2025 was gearing up to be a year full of sequels. The top three movies at the worldwide box office were Ne Zha 2 ($2.2 billion), Zootopia 2 ($1.7 billion), and Avatar: Fire and Ash ($1.4 billion). While this Blumhouse sequel was never supposed to surpass a billion, many expected it to be a box office hit.
The aforementioned Blumhouse movie is M3GAN 2.0, the sequel to 2023’s breakout hit, M3GAN. While M3GAN 2.0 severely underperformed at the box office, it’s finding great success on Netflix. After arriving on Netflix on January 26, M3GAN 2.0 has already jumped to No. 1 in the streamer’s Top 10 chart in the U.S.
What went wrong with M3GAN 2.0?
M3GAN became one of Blumhouse’s best success stories. In the movie, roboticist Gemma (Allison Williams) is forced to become the caregiver for her young niece, Cady (Violet McGraw), after the death of Cady’s parents. Struggling to connect with Cady, Gemma pairs her niece with M3GAN (Amie Donald), a high-powered child-sized android designed to bond with young kids. The experiment works, as Cady immediately takes a liking to M3GAN. The more time M3GAN spends with Cady, the more protective it becomes, causing the AI doll to turn to violence.
Released in January 2023, M3GAN garnered a positive reception for its blend of horror and comedy, with many loving how it embraced its campy tone. M3GAN’s marketing campaign, which included a memorable dance on TikTok, helped the movie cross into mainstream pop culture. M3GAN rode this popularity to a worldwide gross of $181 million, a substantial figure on just a $12 million budget. Greenlighting a sequel to M3GAN was a no-brainer for the studio.
After a two-year hiatus, M3GAN 2.0 opened in theaters in June 2025. The sequel went the T2 route by making M3GAN a hero in a fight against a new and more powerful AI robot, AMELIA (Ivanna Sakhno). Universal and Blumhouse had high hopes for M3GAN 2.0, believing it could become a summer success. In reality, the film tanked at the box office, earning $39 million worldwide on a budget between $15 million and $25 million.
To his credit, Blumhouse CEO Jason Blum owned his failure, saying that it was a mistake to turn M3GAN 2.0 into an action franchise instead of channeling what worked in the first—horror and comedy. “We classically overthought how powerful people’s engagement was with her,” Blum said about M3GAN 2.0’s failure on The Town.
What is next for the M3GAN franchise?
Unfortunately for M3GAN fans, the franchise will take a break. After the disappointment of M3GAN 2.0, Universal has removed SOULM8TE, a M3GAN spin-off, from its release date of January 9, 2026. Universal is now shopping SOULM8TE to other distributors.
That’s not to say M3GAN is officially dead. If M3GAN 2.0 becomes a hit on Netflix, perhaps Universal will reexamine the franchise at a later date. For now, you’ll just have to enjoy the first two M3GAN movies on streaming.
- Release Date
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June 27, 2025
- Runtime
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120 minutes
- Director
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Gerard Johnstone
Cast
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Jenna DavisM3GAN (voice) -
Allison WilliamsGemma -
Violet McGrawCady -
Ivanna SakhnoAmelia
M3GAN 2.0 is a 2025 sci-fi thriller that follows Gemma, the creator of M3GAN, as she resurrects and upgrades the AI companion. This time, M3GAN must thwart a powerful defense contractor’s misuse of her technology, which they have transformed into a military-grade weapon named Amelia.
M3GAN 2.0 is the latest movie to find streaming success. Recently, a polarizing true crime movie from 2022 is finding success on the streaming charts.
