‘M3GAN’ Review: Blumhouse Killer Doll Movie Puts Fun Twist On Well-Worn Horror Genre

Your new best friend is back! After the viral success of M3GAN, the horror movie is getting a sequel — and Allison Williams is set to return as her remorseful creator.

Is the critical acclaim for “M3GAN” overblown? Maybe, but its box office numbers don’t lie. After pulling in $92 million globally off a $12 million budget, a sequel to the killer doll horror-comedy was inevitable.

Lego Masters producer Tuesday’s Child has acquired a controlling stake in compatriot British indie Interstellar.

Nothing to be alarmed about — as we told you, M3GAN 2.0, was inevitable and Uni just set a Jan. 17, 2025 release for sequel to the Blumhouse and Atomic Monster hit film.

Netflix has unveiled its 2023 feature film slate, consisting of 49 titles. 

Seven premiering productions will compete for the Berlinale Series Award next month, with one further world exclusive launch screening out of competition.

Listen, Universal Studios thought they had something special in “M3GAN,” but they certainly didn’t think it would open to over $30 million dollars with the historic blockbuster “Avatar: The Way of Water” still in the marketplace. And despite their conservative public estimates (high teens), even rival studios had it only in a low $20 million+ range.

You can imagine the committee meetings devoted to finding just the right title for primo action star Gerard Butler’s latest in which he plays an airline pilot encountering lightning strikes that force him to crash land on a rebels-infested remote island in the Philippines. As it criss crosses the airline disaster genre and frightening jungle thriller, why not just tell the public what it really is. While it could be called Terror Island, or maybe Pirates Jungle, or Flight To The Death, the producers came up with the inspired plain Plane. That works well enough for anyone expecting Airport meets The High And The Mighty, but really it is just the first half that fits snugly into that category, nail biting as it is.

Universal is wasting little time scheduling another horror title from James Wan’s Atomic Monster and Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Pictures. “Night Swim,” an original horror film starring Wyatt Russell (“Overlord”) and Kerry Condon (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”), has been slated for theatrical release on Jan.

EXCLUSIVE: In their next collaboration following the $30 million-plus opening success of this past weekend’s M3GAN, Atomic Monster and Blumhouse are making Night Swim starring Wyatt Russell and Kerry Condon. Bryce McGuire will direct and write the supernatural thriller which is built around the hidden source of terror found in an iconic backyard swimming pool. The film is based on the short film created by McGuire and Rod Blackhurst.

M3GAN the movie’s popularity rides on that unforgettable, seconds-long dance sequence that played so heavily in its marketing, at once hilarious and deeply unsettling. But the titular toy’s appeal is more than just a piece of perfectly executed choreo.While much has been made of “elevated” in recent years, M3GAN revels in its ridiculousness. The movie follows Cady (Violet McGraw), a young girl who has recently lost her parents in a toy-related car accident.

M3GAN is slaying at the box office and there are already plans for a sequel. Screenwriter Akela Cooper opened up about writing the script for the horror film and revealed that it was originally “gorier” and an unrated version is possibly in development.