{"id":420082,"date":"2026-02-11T15:06:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T15:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/420082\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T15:06:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T15:06:13","slug":"after-netflix-success-2025-sci-fi-movie-sequel-that-flopped-at-the-box-office-is-also-1-on-hbo-max","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/420082\/","title":{"rendered":"After Netflix Success, 2025 Sci-Fi Movie Sequel That Flopped at the Box Office Is Also #1 on HBO Max"},"content":{"rendered":"

A major Sci-Fi<\/a> 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Another that falls more into the latter camp is M3GAN 2.0<\/a>. 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\u2019s not all bad news: the Sci-Fi sequel became a top-three hit on Netflix<\/a> in the U.S., as well as hitting the top six on its worldwide charts, and it\u2019s now followed that up by becoming the #1 global movie on HBO Max [via FlixPatrol<\/a>].<\/p>\n

Is M3GAN 2.0 Worth Watching?<\/p>\n

\"M3GANImage Courtesy of Universal Pictures<\/p>\n

If you liked the first M3GAN, then the sequel is worth watching \u2013 provided you set your expectations accordingly. The original movie was a lot of fun, and the follow-up doesn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s 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\u2019s an entertaining, funny movie, and if you\u2019re watching it at home on a service you already subscribe to, you\u2019ll likely have a good time (and the doll herself remains a clear highlight) so it\u2019s easy to see why it\u2019s doing well on both HBO Max and Netflix.<\/p>\n

Why Did M3GAN 2.0 Underperform At The Box Office?<\/p>\n

\"\"Image via Universal Pictures<\/p>\n

All of the aforementioned issues contributed to M3GAN 2.0\u2018s weaker reviews<\/a>, 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\u2019t help, because even with the quick turnaround time, the novelty had clearly worn off. A shift into a competitive summer release window \u2013 the sequel was released late June, whereas the first was the much quieter period of early January \u2013 didn\u2019t help matters either, and likely overestimated the appeal of this as a potential franchise.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, that\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A major Sci-Fi box office disappointment from last year is now dominating streaming across two different services. 2025…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,11521,126512,2839,1092,99692,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-420082","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-hbo-max","10":"tag-m3gan-2-0","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-regular-news","13":"tag-sci-fi-genre","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}