“We Thought M3GAN Was Like Superman” – Jason Blum Shares Honest Thoughts on ‘M3GAN 2.0’ Failure

After the box office success of M3GAN in 2023, which scared up $180 million worldwide, it seemed like a sure thing that Blumhouse had a hit new franchise on their hands. In addition to a sequel, they also ordered up a universe-expanding spinoff movie titled SOULM8TE – currently dated for January 2026 release – and the future for the killer doll seemed bright.

But M3GAN 2.0 crashed and burned at the box office, making just $10.2 million across its opening weekend. The sequel’s predecessor hit an opening weekend total of $30.4 million, which paints a clear picture that something went very wrong here. But what exactly happened?

In a post-mortem interview with the podcast The Town that just released today, Jason Blum shares his surprisingly honest thoughts about the box office failure of M3GAN 2.0, which Blumhouse was at point expecting to debut with upwards of $45 million. That tracking number went further and further down as the weeks went on, with the film ultimately debuting to a fraction of those early hopes. Blum admits, “We all thought M3GAN 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. We could turn her from a bad guy into a good guy. And we kind of classically over thought how powerful people’s engagement was really with her.”

And that’s how we ended up with Gerard Johnstone’s M3GAN 2.0, which takes a Terminator 2 approach to the previous movie, ramping up the budget and the action spectacle for a follow-up that turns the killer doll of the first movie into something of an action hero. The genre swap from horror to sci-fi/action, it seems, is at least partly to blame for M3GAN 2.0‘s failure to connect with audiences. So too, it would seem, is Blumhouse’s summer release strategy, which pit the killer doll up against not only new adversary Amelia but also behemoth summer blockbusters including F1: The Movie and this week’s Jurassic World Rebirth.

Another possible explanation? Maybe there’s just too much horror competition at the box office right now, with M3GAN 2.0 sandwiched smack dab in the middle of 28 Years Later and the aforementioned Jurassic World Rebirth. “Right now I do [think there’s too much horror in the marketplace],” Jason Blum notes during his interview with The Town this week.

Blum continues, “I think we’re used to a market that can absorb 12 to 15 horror movies where you get these singles and doubles. I think that’s gone. Maybe might come back, who knows. But for right now, I don’t think the market can absorb as much horror as there is for sure.”

“We’ll never really know why this movie didn’t work,” Blum ultimately admits. He notes at a different point, “Even if the financial results are not there we took a shot, right? We said, can we take this horror movie and turn it into a crazy sci-fi action, whatever. And I think there’s so much pressure on originals and there’s so many fewer originals that what I hope M3GAN does is it doesn’t discourage other people who make sequels to now make them too close to the first. I think there’s some sequels that are very different and that do work. This one didn’t have to to be, but we took a creative risk and I really hope that people continue to take creative risks within the walls of their franchises, otherwise the movies will feel all the same.”

Listen to The Town’s full interview with Jason Blum below, which is loaded with interesting industry insights. And you can read Meagan Navarro’s review of M3GAN 2.0 right here.

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