Almost every mainstream project hailing from a major studio has at least one eye on sequels, whether it’s publicly admitted or not, but it often takes a while for the dream to become a reality after Hollywood largely abandoned the ill-fated practice of announcing entire trilogies and shared universes before getting its feet wet. However, thanks to its status as a viral sensation and instant cult classic, M3GAN was given a second shot in rapid order.
Expectations were high for director Gerard Johnstone’s playful sci-fi horror, so much so that the snootier subset of the genre’s fanbase didn’t seem to mind it came bearing a PG-13 rating. Thanks to a sensational marketing campaign that easily ranks as one of the best to come along in years, M3GAN exploded at the box office to haul in a massive $180 million on a $12 million budget.
By the end of its first weekend a follow-up was about as nailed-on as it gets, but even at that, the official confirmation of M3GAN 2.0 coming just 12 days after the opener sliced and diced its way into multiplexes the world over was swift even by the standards of a money-hungry industry.
The titular killer doll hasn’t lost any of its impact on-demand, either, with FlixPatrol revealing that M3GAN has become the number one most-watched movie on Prime Video among subscribers in the United States just 24 hours after making its debut, having shifted over from Universal’s home platform of Peacock. Terror has a new face, and it’s disconcertingly blank.