How M3GAN 2.0 Became a Queer Horror Blockbuster Bomb (And Why You Should Still Give it a Chance)
Words by Alex Secilmis 23 July 2025
© Universal Pictures
Hitting streaming platforms less than 3 weeks after opening on June 27th, M3GAN 2.0 could already spell the end for Blumhouse’s madcap franchise. The horror-centred production company was obviously confident in the property, upgrading the horror-comedy into an action-packed summer blockbuster and already filming a spinoff (next year’s SOULM8TE). Yet, as with the titular doll’s wiring, something went horribly wrong.
Gerard Johnstone’s follow-up to his 2023 AI doll horror hit debuted to $10 million domestically and has gone on to make only $38 million worldwide. Falling well below the original’s $181 million total, it’s nothing short of a disaster for Blumhouse. Jason Blum, founder and CEO of the horror-centred production company, went on Matthew Belloni’s The Town podcast to get ahead of the story. He revealed that tracking predicted a $45 million opening, and his team was even hoping the film might beat F1 to the top spot. He admitted they were “too excited” by the character, and overestimated her power over audiences:
“We all thought Megan was like Superman. We could do anything to her: we could change genres; we could put her in the summer; we could make her look different.”
The first film was a fresh take on the traditional domestic horror drama, with thoughtful commentary on artificial intelligence and a magnetic titular villain as amusing as she was frightening. Against little competition in January 2023, the dancing murderous doll stormed the box office, aided by positive word of mouth and healthy online engagement—where fans embraced Megan as a “diva”. No matter the success of its predecessor, replicating it with a summer release sandwiched between 28 Years Later, F1, and Jurassic World (with Superman dropping two weeks later) was always going to be a difficult task. Regardless of the release date, M3GAN 2.0’s failure has little to do with its plot and everything to do with its marketing. The trailers and promotional materials doubled down on her resonance with online audiences and the queer community: the market that would have probably already seen the film anyway.
© Universal Pictures
Even without an explicitly LGBTQ+ storyline, by foregrounding Megan’s status as a gay icon in both the film and its advertising, M3GAN 2.0 can be read as a rare queer horror blockbuster. A horror film’s queer sensibility is often a coded layer to be unearthed by the right audience (which was very much the case for the first film)—here, the studio outrightly celebrated it. The teaser trailer was set to Chappell Roan’s “Femininomenon” and the main trailer to Britney Spears’ “Oops… I Did it Again!”; dancers in Megan costumes performed to the latter song at the WeHo Pride parade; and Megan herself even expressed support for the trans community in an interview with gay lifestyle magazine Attitude. Not to mention her sitting down with Trisha Paytas. Naturally, the marketing made me and my community incredibly excited, but by openly and almost exclusively embracing Megan’s queer resonance and her fierce, violent femininity, it is sure to have alienated a general audience.
While Blum partly blames the addition of the action genre into the mix (he also suggested that Gerard Johnstone is a director who “needs a lot of time”), the sequel is a tightly-crafted blend of horror and comedy that riffs on Terminator 2 with delightfully outlandish results. When an android assassin, AMELIA (Ivana Sakhno), goes rogue, Gemma (Allison Williams) and Cady (Violet McGraw) must turn to none other than the latter’s very defective old toy to save the world. Still retaining horror elements, the genre shift works—Megan becomes a sassy action anti-hero, and the suspicion around her intentions drives the narrative. It’s an inventive change of pace that allows the franchise to grow, especially when it would have been tempting, but far less compelling, to retread the comparatively straightforward horror of the first film. Well worth a watch on streaming, M3GAN 2.0 is a big, fun, knowingly silly horror movie that’s unafraid to evolve past the original—it’s a shame so few people saw it.
The box office numbers would normally mark a franchise as dead in the water, but Kate Dolan’s SOULM8TE is already slated for a January release. In the guise of an erotic thriller, the spinoff will explore AI as a surrogate romantic partner rather than a parent. If Dolan’s film proves a success, as it may well do with its release date and twist on a classic but underserved genre, our favourite artificial diva may grace our screens once more.