A major Sci-Fi box office disappointment from last year is now dominating streaming across two different services. 2025 was a mixed year for the genre on the big screen, and that includes several sequels that had varying box office returns. Predator: Badlands became the franchise’s highest-grossing installment, Jurassic World: Rebirth and Avatar: Fire & Ash both made big money yet far less so than their predecessors, and TRON: Ares crashed and burned by failing to make back its budget.
Another that falls more into the latter camp is M3GAN 2.0. While the first movie was a word-of-mouth hit back in 2023, grossing $181 million on a budget of just $12m, the sequel only made $39m at the box office (with a reported budget of $15-25m). Still, it’s not all bad news: the Sci-Fi sequel became a top-three hit on Netflix in the U.S., as well as hitting the top six on its worldwide charts, and it’s now followed that up by becoming the #1 global movie on HBO Max [via FlixPatrol].
Is M3GAN 2.0 Worth Watching?
Image Courtesy of Universal Pictures
If you liked the first M3GAN, then the sequel is worth watching – provided you set your expectations accordingly. The original movie was a lot of fun, and the follow-up doesn’t live up to those heights. Part of the problem is that the 2023 hit was a viral sensation, and so the attempts at repeating the elements that made it such a smash on platforms like TikTok, such as the dance sequence, end up feeling forced.
There’s also a major genre shift from horror to action, with The Terminator to T2 the clear inspiration, which is solid in theory, but lacking in execution. Still, it’s an entertaining, funny movie, and if you’re watching it at home on a service you already subscribe to, you’ll likely have a good time (and the doll herself remains a clear highlight) so it’s easy to see why it’s doing well on both HBO Max and Netflix.
Why Did M3GAN 2.0 Underperform At The Box Office?
Image via Universal Pictures
All of the aforementioned issues contributed to M3GAN 2.0‘s weaker reviews, with just 58% on Rotten Tomatoes (the first movie has 93%), and then to its disappointing box office performance as well. The fact that the original was such a viral success didn’t help, because even with the quick turnaround time, the novelty had clearly worn off. A shift into a competitive summer release window – the sequel was released late June, whereas the first was the much quieter period of early January – didn’t help matters either, and likely overestimated the appeal of this as a potential franchise.
Unfortunately, that’s also caused problems for another movie. as there were plans to expand out beyond M3GAN. A spinoff, titled SOULM8TE, was supposed to release in January 2026, but was pulled from the calendar less than one month before it was scheduled to hit theaters and dropped by its distributor, Universal Pictures. The film is completed, but does not currently have a new release date, meaning the M3GAN franchise may be dead before it even truly started.
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