After Killing An Already Completed Spinoff, 2025 Horror Flop Is Slashing Up The Streaming Charts

1 week ago 13

Amelia (Ivanna Sakhno) focused in M3GAN 2.0

Published Jan 27, 2026, 9:23 AM EST

Nick Bythrow is a Lead Writer for ScreenRant. He has been writing for the site since September 2022. He graduated from Hampshire College in 2022, where he triple majored in Journalism, Communications, and Media Studies. When he's not writing about TV and movies for ScreenRant and his blog, Frayed Branches, Nick is penning speculative fiction and poetry on Amazon. He lives outside Boston, Massachusetts.

One of 2025's biggest horror movie failures is being rebuilt on streaming.

After killing a spinoff movie that was already finished, a 2025 horror flop is slashing its way up Netflix's streaming charts. While 2025's best horror movies, from Weapons to Sinners, have earned critical acclaim and major accolades, there have also been a number of duds. This includes poorly reviewed Blumhouse movies like Wolf Man and The Woman in the Yard.

One such failure is M3GAN 2.0, the sequel to 2023's viral horror movie sensation, M3GAN. The sequel sees its title android rebuilt to fight against a military robot attempting to take over the world with AI. The movie did poorly at the box office, earning $39.1 million against a $15-25 million budget. A filmed spinoff, SOULM8TE, was later pulled from release.

Now, Netflix reports that M3GAN 2.0 is Number 1 on their streaming charts, despite its poor performance at the box office when it was first released. The movie is listed as the top film in the United States not long after its debut on the platform, indicating a wide audience interest among subscribers.

M3GAN wearing a futuristic outfit in M3GAN 2.0

M3GAN 2.0 reviews were often unkind to the film. The movie holds a 57% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics calling the film a fun time, but lacking the nuanced themes about AI that made the original so impactful. Its box office underperformance resulted in SOULM8TE having its release date pulled as Universal seeks a new distributor.

Despite how much the movie underperformed at the box office, though, M3GAN 2.0's cast earned praise from critics, and appear to be a driving force behind the film's current level of success. Given how recognizable a figure M3GAN herself is, it's not shocking that her sequel would do well on streaming, especially on the biggest streaming platform in the world.

As for how this factors into the future of the franchise, it's unclear if a streaming success story will be enough for a possible third M3GAN movie. Its spinoff was already filmed in full before it was pulled from release, just one month before its planned January 2026 debut. This makes it uncertain what needs to happen for the franchise to continue.

However, with the film finding new life on Netflix, it's clear there's an audience for the franchise should it move forward with more installments. What that would look like remains to be seen, but it's still possible the future of the series isn't doomed. It all depends on how Blumhouse approaches the series moving forward.