Marisa Abela, one of the stars of acclaimed British drama Industry, has joined Henry Cavill and Russell Crowe in Highlander, Amazon MGM’s remake of the 1980s cult classic.
Chad Stahelski is on board to direct the feature, which hails from Amazon MGM’s United Artists banner and is slated to get a theatrical release.
The original Highlander, released in 1986, starred Christopher Lambert as Connor MacLeod, a Medieval Scottish Highlander who discovers he is an immortal warrior. With the help of a swordsman named Ramirez, played by Sean Connery, the titular Highlander battles other immortals across the centuries, culminating in a modern battle in which, like the classic line of dialogue goes, “there can be only one.” The movie went back and forth from various time periods.
In the remake, Cavill is playing MacLeod while Crowe is Ramirez.
The new script, being written by Michael Finch, is taking some diversions from the original as it builds out a more complex and deeper world. According to sources, the feature seems to be populated by more immortals who also happen to be from various parts of the world.
In what is being described as a leading role, Abela will play one of the new characters, an immortal who is a teacher of swordplay and one of MacLeod’s past loves.
UA’s Scott Stuber and Nick Nesbitt are producing alongside Neal H. Moritz, Stahelski’s 87Eleven Entertainment, Josh Davis of Davis Panzer Productions, and Louise Rosner.
UA has secured full rights to the 1986 original, with potential to also develop a new series. Lionsgate spent years developing the project before relinquishing it to UA.
Production is due to begin in September, with shooting to take place in Scotland, England, and locales such as Hong Kong.
Abela recently won a BAFTA TV award for her performance in the third season of Industry, the British banking drama that has gained notices on both sides of the pond. She also stole scenes from under Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett in Black Bag, Steven Soderbergh’s spy thriller that was released earlier this year to rave reviews.
Abela is repped by WME, The Artists Partnership and Sloane Offer.
the excellent “Astroworld” documentary is a heartbreaking deep dive into how a fun, exciting moment can turn deadly in an instant. Suffice it to say, the Rob Ford doc is significantly more salacious.
Now, there’s a brand new “Trainwreck” on Netflix, and it’s definitely the grossest one yet. In fact, it might be one of the grossest documentaries available to stream in general. It all depends on how you deal with scatological stories, because this one’s got the scoop on a whole lot of poop (literally).
According to FlixPatrol, Netflix’s top 10 movies in the U.S. is currently home to “Trainwreck: Poop Cruise.” The doc tells the true story of the Carnival Triumph, a cruise ship that suffered an engine fire while in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, causing the vessel to stop completely dead in the water. It also caused major electrical and plumbing issues onboard, which led to the ship’s toilets overflowing into the hallways with raw sewage. (Hence, “poop cruise.”) Of course, as fun as it might be to say “poop cruise,” and as humorous as it is in theory and retrospect, the actual ordeal was a harrowing nightmare, and the Netflix doc has all of the gritty, gross details.
Trainwreck: Poop Cruise is as entertaining as it is disgusting
Netflix
The thing that makes most of these “Trainwreck” documentaries so compelling are the interviews with various ordinary people who were involved in these extraordinary situations, and “Poop Cruise” is no different. While it’s one thing to see video of the sewage spilling into the halls, the firsthand accounts of events hit harder because it’s easy to empathize with people’s incredulity and shock. While it’s a far cry from the depressing horrors of something like “The Last Cruise” (the documentary about the Diamond Princess cruise ship that was quarantined at sea during the early days of the Covid pandemic), “Poop Cruise” still has enough nastiness to convince some audiences to never set foot on a cruise ship. (I, for one, will never board one unless the ship’s doctor is named Odyssey, thanks.) Both the vacationers and crew were nervous about being trapped at sea in increasingly uncomfortable conditions, trying to combat boredom as well as the ship becoming one big bathroom. When someone in charge decided that the solution was to start serving alcohol for free to try and calm the guests, things got even more out of hand, with some guests even flinging bags of poop overboard only to have them fly back to the ship and land on one of the lower decks.
Perhaps none of the interviewees in “Poop Cruise” stand out more than Abhi, a chef who describes everything very colorfully, his general tone more bemused than anything else. He seems like a really easy-going, friendly man, and when he describes seeing something he describes as a “poop lasagna,” it’s easily both the doc’s grossest and funniest moment. Is “Trainwreck: Poop Cruise” going to really teach you anything or change the world? Absolutely not, but it is an interesting way to spend an hour… as long as you have the stomach for it.
The English star is talking to The Hollywood Reporter from New York, where she just premiered Heads of State, starring Idris Elba and John Cena. “Everybody was just so pumped for it,” she says of Ilya Naishuller’s imminent action comedy, set to debut on Amazon Prime on July 2.
But this isn’t the project Niles is here to discuss — and it’s not her role in the hotly anticipated Fantastic Four: First Steps, either. The actress, perhaps best known to audiences as Ted Lasso‘s Dr. Sharon Fieldstone, is doing press for the Brad Pitt-led F1 movie, the high-octane, high-budget sport thriller currently dominating the U.S. and global box office.
“I can’t really complain,” she says of her jam-packed calendar. “I’ve had these films coming out and the excitement around them… I’m living the dream.”
In F1 — filmed at real-life Formula One races across the 2024 season — Niles stars as the gentle and wise Bernadette. Mother to Pitt’s co-star Damson Idris, playing Joshua Pearce, her role is a welcome break from the thrilling, nail-biting speed of a movie dedicated to emphasizing the sport’s extremes.
Sonny Hayes (Pitt) joins Javier Bardem’s APXGP, a flailing F1 team whose survival depends on one small feat: winning a race. When driver-turned-businessman Ruben Cervantes (Bardem) calls in a favor to his former teammate, all eyes are on Hayes to deliver.
There are, of course, the hurdles: a “shitbox” car not performing as technical director Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon) would like it to, a promising but immature young driver (Idris) defiantly working against, and not with, his teammate, as well as a board that wants to cut its losses and sell up before APXGP loses any more money. The film hits all the right story beats while delivering on the rip-roaring action sequences.
“I don’t know how they managed to capture F1, but they did,” Niles says of the team-up between director Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick) and producer Jerry Bruckheimer. “I was a bit worried about people going, especially hardcore fans. [I thought], ‘Are they really going to like this?’”
Her fears went unrealized. Below, Niles talks to THR about seeing Pitt and Idris in painstaking rehearsal mode, understanding her character with the help of seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton and sitting behind Tom Cruise at the film’s gargantuan London premiere: “I thought, ‘If Tom Cruise is on the edge of his seat, you know you’ve got a winner here.’”
You must be a busy woman right now.
I am. I can’t really complain. It’s a wonderful place to be in. I’ve had these films coming out and the excitement around them… [I’m] living the dream.
Were you an F1 fan before this movie came into your life?
No, I wasn’t! When I was growing up, it used to be on sometimes on a Saturday and I could hear the cars going. [But] I didn’t know anything about the sport. I didn’t think it was for me. And I love sports, so when I went for the audition, my manager was like, “It’s called F1 and Brad Pitt’s attached.” That was all the information, and possibly there’s a character that may have one scene. I was like, “OK.” When I got the scenes to audition for, I met with [director] Joe Kosinksi and [producer] Jerry [Bruckheimer]. And Jerry said to me, “You need to watch Drive to Survive.”
What was your immediate reaction to DTS?
I was blown away. I love the fast pace of it. You get the snippets of their dedication and what they put their bodies through to be the best they can be. It’s just fascinating. It’s got so much fire in it, drama. And the film, you’re on the edge of your seat.
Sarah Niles and Damson Idris in F1.
Warner Bros. Pictures Publicity
It’s a thrilling watch. At the same time, you have one of the softest and more gentle characters to balance that out. What was it you liked about Bernadette?
I approached it as it was. I was like, “OK, she’s playing a mum.” I was in a couple of scenes when I first read the script. Then, when I got in the room and met Joe, I loved his work, I think he’s a brilliant director, having seen Top Gun: Maverick, and then Jerry Bruckheimer… I grew up watching so many of his films. We had a conversation about this character. They had a real understanding of what she was like and the relationship she may have had with [Joshua’s] father. There’s all this background information they had. She’s Caribbean, she works in a medical profession. I was thinking maybe she works as a nurse or something to do with emergencies so she would understand about being in those spaces of trauma. She’d understand how to take care of her son. Then, the relationship with her husband, Joshua’s dad, who passed away, she would understand caring for him… [Kosinski] was very specific about making sure this character wasn’t just, “Oh, I’m a mum and really miserable and worried about my son.” She has agency. You can tell she’s not afraid to put Joshua down. She’s not afraid to tease him. She makes a comment about Sonny being a good-looking man. She’s a bit cheeky.
You have to have this mother who roots things because everything’s high-energy, high-octane. The stress levels and excitement — you have to have something that grounds it to understand where this person comes from. Joshua’s character says, “I climbed a mountain to be here.”
Your performance was described by our THR critic as a standout.
[Smiles.] Yeah. When I read Sonny’s character, and I understood the complexities of this man, then I thought, “OK, I need to be in this.” I need to [show] what the complexities are for the families [of drivers]. As much as it is their sons putting their bodies through it, being dedicated and focused, it’s the families that help to drive you as well. They help to push you. They know you at your lowest point.
Did you speak to some of the drivers or their families?
I was lucky enough to speak to Sir Lewis Hamilton. And from the get-go, Joe was like, “I’m gonna get you to have a conversation with Lewis.” And he sat with me, we talked and Joe left us to it.
Lewis was really open about his upbringing. In my opinion, he’s one of the most successful racers. He’s not only the best driver, he’s the best-dressed. He’s got a whole brand. And him talking about his upbringing and his sacrifices that his dad had to make — financially, he was not part of that world. I was like, these are the things that I can bring into this. I’m not part of that world. I come from a working-class background. But that’s not a limitation. How do you occupy those spaces? Having that really solidified it for me, and gave me so much information for how I could create this character. He was saying his dad was Grenadian… I just thought to myself, “This character has to be Bajan.” My parents are from Barbados, and it’s a very small island. I thought Bernadette has to be coming from a place that’s different to what we usually see.
And there is that significance of Lewis being the first Black F1 driver. We see it with Joshua’s character, too. An element of having to work harder to get here.
Yeah, yeah. And what I love about the way Damson portrays Joshua is time has moved on. At the end he is like, “That’s who I am. I’ve occupied this space. I’m not apologizing for anything. I’m stepping into my power.” But he’s moving with it. He understands where he’s come from, and he’s just going forward. It feels very 2025.
[Lewis] has so much more to achieve as well. He’s really changed the game. Even watching him in Drive to Survive, how he talks about the car, how he’s studying it. When they’re having a debrief about a race, it’s not just about being able to drive a car really fast. You have to strategize. You have to know where you went wrong. Kerry’s character talks about the car: “I’m not out there. I need information from you about what it feels like in order to change and improve it.” They have to know all about that.
Had you met or worked with Damson before this film?
I met Damson once, socially, like just by accident. But I never met him [properly]. He’s got a real drive and focus, and it works really well.
Is he quite similar to Joshua, the character?
No, he’s not. He’s from south London, which I am from as well, and he’s got a real kind of: “This is my time. This is my space. I’m going to just work hard for it.” He and Brad were really going through [it] in rehearsals. I got to watch them race and I think the one time I saw Damson make a mistake, he was just like [drops head]. It meant so much to him to get it right.
From left: Samson Kayo, Damson Idris and Sarah Niles in ‘F1.’
Warner Bros. Pictures Publicity
What was that like, being privy to Damson and Brad’s relationship off-camera and the immense amount of research they were doing for these roles?
It was great. I met Brad at a read-through. His energy, the way he came up to me and said he loved me and Ted Lasso. He wasn’t afraid to tell me how much he loved the show and loved me in it. That’s how he carried himself. He’s very open. And when you got someone like that as your number one, I told him this at the London premiere. I said: “When your number one cast member is open and kind and wants to do well, everybody wants to follow suit, right?” That’s what you need to have. He’s the captain of the ship and he’s steering it. And then Damson, too… I really had to pinch myself.
What’s it like on a Joseph Kosinski set?
It’s amazing. You’ve got the best of the best, really, when you’ve got, Jerry as a producer [too]. He’s an architect. He understands this is the landscape and how it’s going to be understood by those receiving it. He’s very, very clever.
Is it safe to say you’re an F1 fan now?
Oh, yeah, definitely. 100 percent.
It must have been so difficult to film in parts — at the actual races— did you get to go to any?
I was at [Silverstone, the British Grand Prix]. I was watching behind Joe. He was generous enough to let me sit behind him while he was filming. And you could feel, through to the paddock, the spectators, it’s what you’d imagine ancient Greece was like. It’s theater. Everybody there is high-energy. And I remember watching when they did the national anthem, it’s crazy how they did it. You can see Brad and Damson standing there. There was a moment when the two of them just started walking and they were playing “We Will Rock You.” At that point, I think it was the first or second day I’d been on set, and I hadn’t really filmed anything. I just said, “This film, I can tell, is going to be a hit.”
I don’t how they managed to [capture F1] but they did. I was a bit worried about people, especially hardcore fans. [I thought], “Are they really going to like this?” But [the drivers] really have a dedication to wanting to do it well. Seeing how many laps they do, seeing the turning points, there’s so much in it that they’ve managed to capture about Formula One.
There is, it has been said, this fighter pilot level of braveryin the sport.
And that’s where Joe comes into it. Because when you watch Top Gun: Maverick, you understand the pressures of flying those planes. Then you understand Formula One and the pressures of driving something which could ultimately could kill you.
At the London premiere, I sat behind Tom Cruise. And Tom Cruise was on the edge of the seat from the get-go. He was watching it like this: [leans forward]. Luckily, I’d seen it before so I was able to be a bit more relaxed. But even I found new things in the film I hadn’t realized before. And I thought, “If Tom Cruise is on the edge of his seat, you know you’ve got a winner here.” He’s the ultimate entertainer. He was so cool. He said, “Hey, how you doing?” He said hello to my friends and the people in our row. He was just so at ease.
Sarah Niles stars in Heads of State and Fantastic Four: First Steps this summer.
Camara Edwards
Can you tell us about your role in Fantastic Four?
You need to go and watch it! I work with the Fantastic Four. It’s a great cast. I can’t wait for people to see it. There’s a lot of heart in this one.
So many blockbusters for you.
Matt Shakman, the director of Fantastic Four, he was like, “This is the summer of Sarah.”
“Dominion,” which left dinosaurs running loose with humans all over the world. However, the planet’s ecology has proven largely inhospitable to dinosaurs, with many dying off. The remaining dinos mostly live in isolated environments near the equator, which have climates resembling the one they once lived in.
Writer David Koepp has said that he saw “Jurassic World Rebirth” as a chance to start over. Koepp, who also wrote the script for the original “Jurassic Park,” decided it would be easier to once again isolate the dinosaurs in places largely removed from humanity rather than try to contend with a world in which these species separated by tens of millions of years would have to find a way to co-exist.
The first act of “Rebirth” does deal with some of what the world looks like with dinosaurs in it, causing traffic jams and whatnot, but by and large, one of this movie’s biggest contributions to the franchise’s future is undoing what director Colin Trevorrow accomplished with “Dominion,” in some ways. Much changed in the five-year gap between these films.
Welcome to the Neo-Jurassic Era
Universal Pictures
The previous “Jurassic World” trilogy, particularly “Fallen Kingdom” and “Dominion,” did a lot of work to get dinosaurs off of Isla Nublar and out into the real world, so much so that “Fallen Kingdom” literally blew up Isla Nublar and brought the dinosaurs elsewhere, teeing up the events of “Dominion.” But Edwards and Koepp opted to try and scale things back once again by isolating dinosaurs to islands where humans can conveniently avoid them.
Another big thing that this “Rebirth” does is actually explain, within the universe that these films exist in, how humans have defined this strange period of modern history when dinosaurs once again exist after going extinct roughly 65 million years ago, thanks to John Hammond and the geneticists at InGen. Early on in the film when Scarlett Johansson’s Zora Bennett goes to recruit Jonathan Bailey’s Dr. Henry Loomis, some animated documentary footage at his museum reveals that this era is known as the “Neo-Jurassic Era.”
Basically, dating back to roughly the early ’90s when Hammond first brought dinosaurs back to life, historians and scientists had to come up with a way to describe this period, which represented a seismic shift. For a time, it was chaotic, from a T-rex rampaging through the streets of San Diego at the end of “The Lost World” to the deadly events that forced Jurassic World to close. But that chaos is being reined in quite a bit as this film’s events are unfolding.
Jurassic World Rebirth isolates humans and dinosaurs once again
Universal Pictures
Most crucially, Edwards’ film once again establishes a situation where humans can, for the most part, avoid dealing with dinosaurs. There are no active dinosaur theme parks. The public has largely lost interest in dinosaurs, as they’ve been alive again for more than three decades. It’s old news. While the short film “Battle at Big Rock” offered a promising, cool vision of this franchise where we get a first-person view of the chaos that results from dinosaurs existing where humans live their day-to-day lives, that’s not something that Universal and/or the filmmakers were interested in exploring here, for better or worse.
Whatever one’s thoughts are on “Rebirth” as a whole, the decision to scale things back in this way does raise the question once again of what the whole point of “Jurassic World Dominion” was. Trevorrow went out of his way to help set up this “dinosaurs and humans coexisting” concept, which Universal supported (in no small part because the first “Jurassic World” was one of the biggest movies ever). It does feel a little odd for them to just walk that all back now. At the same time, “Dominion” focused largely on giant locusts as opposed to dinosaurs attacking cities. So if they weren’t ever going to fully commit to that idea, even in a movie where it ostensibly should have been a big part of the plot, maybe pulling things back makes some sense.
Whatever the case, this film largely exists as a standalone story. The future of the franchise is uncertain, as no direct sequel is set up. There are no post-credits scenes to speak of. If there is an eighth “Jurassic” movie — and there likely will be — barring a reboot, the next filmmaker will once again have to find a good reason for humans to head to a place where these dangerous animals live.
Neil Druckmann, who developed the original PlayStation games with his Naughty Dog team, is stepping down as co-showrunner. With that said, fans of Naughty Dog’s game portfolio might have good reason to be really excited.
“I’ve made the difficult decision to step away from my creative involvement in ‘The Last of Us’ on HBO,” Druckmann, who previously served as co-showrunner alongside Craig Mazin (“Chernobyl”), said in a statement posted on Naughty Dog’s official Instagram account. “With work completed on season 2 and before any meaningful work starts on season 3, now is the right time for me to transition my complete focus to Naughty Dog and its future projects, including writing and directing our exciting next game, ‘Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet,’ along with my responsibilities as Studio Head and Head of Creative.”
“Co-creating the show has been a career highlight,” Druckmann’s statement went on to add. “It’s been an honor to work alongside Craig Mazin to executive produce, direct, and write on the last two seasons. I’m deeply thankful for the thoughtful approach and dedication the talented cast and crew took to adapting ‘The Last of Us Part I’ and the continued adaptation of ‘The Last of Us Part II.'”
There’s no question that Druckmann has been an enormous part of HBO’s “The Last of Us” since the series began its run in early 2023, so while it feels like a game changer to see him step away, it’s good to know that it’s in service of Naughty Dog’s continued work. So, what does Mazin have to say about all this?
Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin may end up leading The Last of Us on his own
Liane Hentscher/HBO
Outlets like Variety have obtained a statement directly from Craig Mazin, a guy who was once best known for the “Hangover” sequels before he shifted his focus to a much darker subject and created the HBO series “Chernobyl,” making it clear that he’s an incredibly skilled dramatic showrunner. Unsurprisingly, Mazin was supportive of his co-showrunner’s next move.
“It’s been a creative dream to work with Neil and bring an adaptation of his brilliant work to life on HBO,” as Mazin’s statement puts it. “I couldn’t have asked for a more generous creative partner. As a true fan of Naughty Dog and Neil’s work in video games, I’m beyond excited to play his next game. While he focuses on that, I’ll continue to work with our brilliant cast and crew to deliver the show our audience has come to expect. We are so grateful to Neil and [the original game’s co-writer] Halley Gross for entrusting the incredible story of ‘The Last of Us Part II’ to us, and we’re just as grateful to the millions of people around the world who tune in.”
The references both Neil Druckmann and Mazin make to “The Last of Us Part II,” Naughty Dog’s 2020 sequel to “The Last of Us,” should make sense to anyone who watched the show’s second season. It ends with — semi-old spoiler alert! — Kaitlyn Dever’s Abby looking out at Seattle at the beginning of a narratively vital three-day run as the fate of Ellie (Bella Ramsey) hangs in the balance. It’s going to take a while, at the rate the show is going, to adapt all of “The Last of Us Part II,” the story of which spans years. In any case, it’s very possible that Mazin won’t replace Druckmann (who could possibly replace the guy who created the original game, after all?), but based on his work on the series, we can all feel pretty comfortable about Mazin steering this metaphorical ship on his own.
Neil Druckmann directed some incredibly important episodes of The Last of Us
Liane Hentscher/HBO
Something that fans of “The Last of Us” will likely miss most about Neil Druckmann’s departure from the series is that, after cutting his teeth on directing video games like “The Last of Us” itself, Druckmann stepped behind the camera for two incredibly important episodes in the series. His first episode, “Infected,” is the second-ever episode of the show and opens with one of its most stunning scenes, where we see Indonesian mycology professor Ratna Pertiwi (Christine Hakim) makes a horrifying realization about the cordyceps virus that will, eventually, overtake the world and turn people into bloodthirsty zombies. (The scene concludes with her in tears saying Jakarta should simply be bombed; it’s frankly unforgettable.) This is also the episode that fully reveals Ellie’s immunity to her new caretakers Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Tess (Anna Torv) as they attempt to safely transport her across a ruined United States — with Tess sacrificing herself to an infected horde to save Joel and Ellie — so it’s pretty important … and well-directed by Druckmann. (Mazin, for his part, wrote this episode.)
Then, in season 2 of the series, Druckmann took up the director’s chair once more for “The Price,” the season’s penultimate episode (which was also written by Druckmann alongside Mazin and Halley Gross). After Joel’s shocking and brutal death earlier in the season, “The Price” serves as one big flashback, similar to the game, that shows Joel and Ellie’s relationship throughout the years as they live in the protected settlement of Jackson, Wyoming. Not only is this the episode where we find out what actually happened to Joe Pantoliano’s character Eugene, but it also features one of the most emotionally resonant scenes in the entire show between Joel and Ellie, which is stunningly performed by both Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. Druckmann’s departure as showrunner is tough for the series, and losing him as a director is hard too; maybe, one day, he’ll pop back in for another directing credit (though he may be too busy, so let’s not hold our breath).
Jason Blum — who struck out on his own as an independent producer in the early 2000s after leaving Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax — was haunted during those years by the fear that he would never succeed on his own.
That’s when he received a DVD of a tiny horror film titled Paranormal Activity that was shot for less than $15,000 by unknown filmmaker Oren Peli. Blum and others believed the film could be a hit and tried to find it a distributor. One door after another was slammed shut, but Blum wouldn’t give up and eventually helped garner the interest of none other than Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks. Spielberg himself watched the movie and was thoroughly spooked, according to Hollywood lore.
DreamWorks and its then-partner Paramount Pictures first released the film in more than a dozen college towns in late September 2009 before rolling it out nationwide as Halloween approached. Paranormal would go on to earn $107.9 million domestically and $194.2 million globally to become one of the most profitable titles in Hollywood history. It also put Blum’s banner, Blumhouse, on the map and ushered in the Golden Age of the micro-budgeted horror pic that scared up multi-million dollar franchises such as Paranormal, Insidious and The Purge.
Blum made Universal his home studio per a lucrative deal that allows him creative autonomy, as well as the freedom to work with other studios. Among his many successes for Universal, he helped revive the Halloween franchise, and also returned to his prestige roots when producing Oscar winners such as Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017) and Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman (2018).
Now, however, Blum’s long-ago fear of failure has returned in a reversal of fortune that began in 2024 and has continued in earnest this year, with all four of its 2025 releases becoming major box office misses, beginning with Wolf Man ($34. 1 million globally), The Woman in the Yard ($23.3 million globally) and Drop ($28.6 million globally).
But by far the most shocking failure was M3GAN 2.0, which bombed over the June 27-29 weekend and stunned Hollywood, considering it is a sequel to an unqualified hit. Released in January 2023, M3GAN — about an AI doll who takes on a life of her own with horrendous consequences — launched to $30.4 million domestically on its way to grossing $181.7 million globally against a mere budget of $12 million.
M3GAN 2.0, which cost at least $25 million to produce before marketing, opened to just $10.2 million domestically and $17 million globally.
So, what happened? Director Gerard Johnstone, Blumhouse and partner Atomic Monster, run by James Wan, decided to go in a different direction and make the M3GAN sequel more of a sci-fi action pic, whereby the doll becomes the protagonist in the style of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Audiences simply weren’t interested in the about-face. Box office pundits and Hollywood insiders also question the wisdom of releasing the sequel in the far more competitive summer corridor.
Insiders at Blumhouse tell The Hollywood Reporter that the soul-searching within the company has already commenced. It is absorbing lessons from this tough year, and is reevaluating its slate through the lens of whether a horror film qualifies as a cinematic event in an era where the market for such fare is oversaturated. There’s also a recognition that Blumhouse’s ambition to release as many as 10 titles a year theatrically may be too grand, with Blum agreeing that the box office cannot withstand as many horror films as it used to, especially smaller single and titles. Most importantly, a course correction is required in terms of remembering what the Blumhouse horror brand means, with a key takeaway being that what has worked in the past does not necessarily work in today’s changing landscape.
The company is now looking ahead to October’s Black Phone 2, which is a pure horror feature, and December’s Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, which test audiences are said to have responded enthusiastically to. The first Freddy’s grossed a massive $297.1 million at the global box office to become the top-earner in Blumhouse’s history against a $20 million budget, not adjusted for inflation. Insiders at both Blumhouse and Universal are hopeful that the pic will restore the luster to the house that that Blum built.
One pressing matter facing Blumhouse is M3GAN 2.0 spinoff SOULM8TE, which hits theaters Jan. 9, 2026, and tells the story of an adult AI robot companion. While it’s to soon to say whether plans for the film will change, insiders say discussions are underway regarding the entire upcoming slate, including SOULM8TE, but add that the spinoff has tested incredibly well.
Blum himself decided to speak out proactively about M3GAN 2.0 and Blumhouse’s slump in a podcast interview with The Town’s Matt Belloni during the weekend of the film’s opening. He owned up to what may have gone so wrong.
“We all thought Megan was like Superman. We could do anything to her. We could change genres. We could put her in the summer. We could make her look different. We could turn her from a bad guy into a good guy. And we classically over-thought how powerful people’s engagement was with her,” Blum said, reiterating that the audience wasn’t ready to genre-swap. (He also admitted to being in “pain” all weekend.)
One horror producer familiar with the inner workings of Blumhouse couldn’t agree more, telling THR the film’s failure boiled down to hubris. “They thought they were being all clever changing the dates and the genres,” the person said. Adds another horror producer: “This was not the sequel audiences wanted. It was the movie that the director wanted.”
The good news: no one at Universal is freaking out about M3GAN 2.0 or Blumhouse’s recent slump, since its titles are far more modestly budgeted than most studio pics. “We would be having a different conversation if they weren’t responsible,” says one studio insider. “At the end of the day, every one of these movies will make money.” All told, the 42 releases from Blumhouse since it was founded in 2002 have grossed more than $6 billion at the worldwide box office (not all belong to Universal). The vast majority cost less than $20 million to produce, and in many cases, notably less.
“I said to [Blumhouse employees] this morning that if you look at any massive talent, whether they are a movie star or whether they are a production company or whether they are a studio, every one of your favorite people have gone through slumps. And that applies to Blumhouse, too,” Blum said in his The Town interview.
Comscore chief box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian says no one is immune to the traffic jam taking place currently at the summer box office, whether it’s family films going up each other or genre films such as 28 Years Later and M3GAN 2.0. He adds, “It’s playing out more like a cinematic gladiator school or a Dickensian marketplace, where it’s the best of times for some and the worst of times for others.”
