Hold on to your vaginas! M3GAN 2.0 is turning out to be a massive misfire for Universal Pictures as fans are avoiding it, and the box office is looking like a complete disaster.
The first movie released in 2023 was a surprise hit. It opened to over $30 million and went on to bring in over $180 million. The budget was reported to be only $12 million, so that is a huge success.
However, instead of doubling down, for whatever reason (I haven’t seen the movie myself), Universal, director Gerard Johnstone and the writers dumped the horror angle from M3GAN 2.0 and turned the sequel into a goofy sci-fi movie.
What happened?
I could tell when I watched the first trailer that M3GAN 2.0 was in trouble, as apparently Megan gets an adult body and fights another AI who looks like an adult human. It was all about upgrades, Megan becoming the “good guy” and becoming friends with the humans as they apparently battle the new upgraded AI, Amelia. It looks to be a lot different than the original which drew fans into the theaters.
Box office well under the first movie
So check this out: The first M3GAN had Thursday previews of $2.75M – that’s without anyone having watched the movie other than the trailers. M3GAN 2.0? $1.5M. So that tells me fans hated what they saw in the trailer. Let’s also add that M3GAN is super popular at the Universal Horror Night events and has become a TikTok sensation, yet fans aren’t showing up. Again, huge misfire.
As a result of the Thursday previews tanking, opening weekend box office estimates for M3GAN 2.0 are now only $20M at best.
What happened?
I’ve seen this before. It’s my guess that with the success of the first movie, the creators got more money (budget reported to be $25M) and instead of sticking with what works, decided to go “bigger,” which again, is misfiring with the fans. They don’t want to see a “good guy” M3GAN and all this “upgraded” tech.
This also seems to be reflected in the Rotten Tomatoes Score from critics, which currently is at 58%, compared to the first film’s 93% rating. The audience score isn’t yet available because not enough people have seen the movie yet to meet RT’s threshold to release the score.
