{"id":364440,"date":"2025-12-22T22:32:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T22:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/364440\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T22:32:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T22:32:15","slug":"despite-the-m3gan-sequels-big-bust-blumhouse-notched-a-billion-dollar-year-for-horror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/364440\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite the ‘M3GAN’ Sequel’s Big Bust, Blumhouse Notched a Billion-Dollar Year for Horror"},"content":{"rendered":"

You can\u2019t keep a masked killer down, and horror movies themselves are much the same. The genre is famously, reliably profitable thanks to a long tradition of low-budget films that rake in very high yields<\/a>, and one of Hollywood\u2019s biggest horror-specific companies\u2014Blumhouse and Atomic Monster<\/a>, which joined forces in 2024\u2014is tasting that sweet success after starting the year off with a major disappointment.<\/p>\n

That letdown was, of course, M3GAN 2.0<\/a>, a seemingly sure thing after the success of 2022\u2019s breakout first film, which earned over $180 million off its $12 million budget. Unfortunately, audiences didn\u2019t embrace the sequel in the same way<\/a>; while it was still profitable, it was far less so\u2014and its box-office bummer was likely a big reason why Soulm8te, a spin-off described as a \u201990s-style erotic thriller, was recently taken off Universal\u2019s release calendar<\/a> for 2026.<\/p>\n

But as it turns out, one M3GAN misfire wasn\u2019t enough to prevent Blumhouse and Atomic Monster from reaching quite the milestone this year: according to Deadline<\/a>, taken together, \u201call eight of their productions have grossed $1.022 billion at the global box office\u201d this year, \u201coff of combined production costs of $204M before P&A [advertising].\u201d<\/p>\n

Those eye-popping numbers owe a lot to The Conjuring: Last Rites, the highest-grossing entry yet in that series. While it was positioned as the final film in the series, its success sparked talk of a prequel Conjuring film<\/a> on the way.<\/p>\n

Other major 2025 successes have included Black Phone 2 as well as Five Nights at Freddy\u2019s 2. Given that, you can assume Blumhouse and Atomic Monster certainly won\u2019t be shy about staying in the sequel business\u2026 even if M3GAN 2.0 ended up underperforming.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You can\u2019t keep a masked killer down, and horror movies themselves are much the same. The genre is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364441,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[14495,21833,88,6842,206],"class_list":{"0":"post-364440","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-atomic-monster","9":"tag-blumhouse","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-horror","12":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}