Box office M3GAN grossed $95.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $86.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide gross of $181.8 million.
Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be $78.8million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues. In the United States and Canada,
M3GAN was initially projected to gross $17–20 million from 3,509 theaters in its opening weekend. After making $11.7 million on its first day (including $2.75 million from Thursday night previews), estimates were increased to $27.5 million. It went on to debut to $30.4 million, finishing in second place at the box office behind holdover
Avatar: The Way of Water. The film made $18.3 million in its second weekend, remaining in second. In its third and fourth weekends the film made $9.7 million and $6.4 million, finishing in third and fourth place, respectively.
Critical response received praise for playing Gemma. On the
review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 93% based on 315 reviews and an average rating of 7.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Unapologetically silly and all the more entertaining for it,
M3GAN is the rare horror-comedy that delivers chuckles as effortlessly as chills". On
Metacritic, the film has a
weighted average score of 72 out of 100 based on 54 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences polled by
CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of B on an A+ to F scale, while those polled at
PostTrak gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars.
Varietys
Owen Gleiberman called
M3GAN "a diverting genre film, one that possesses a healthy sense of its own absurdity", and wrote that the film satirizes "all of usor, at least, those who now think of the mirror offered by artificial intelligence as an actual form of interaction." David Rooney of
The Hollywood Reporter commended the physical and voice performances of Donald and Davis, respectively, as well as the visual effects work used to depict M3GAN; Rooney wrote that the film's "shocks and scares and even the cautionary notes are not lessened by the enjoyable vein of campy humor."
Peter Bradshaw of
The Guardian awarded the film three out of five stars, calling it a "cheekily enjoyable chiller" and writing: "Derivative though
M3GAN undoubtedly is, [...] there are some adroit satirical touches about dolls as toxic aspirational templates, dolls as parodies of intimacy and sensitivity and tech itself as sinister child-pacification, with kids given
iPads the way
Victorian children were given alcoholic
gripe water." Meagan Navarro of
Bloody Disgusting similarly praised the effects and performance work involved in depicting M3GAN, and complimented the film's humor, but called the trajectory of the narrative "well-telegraphed" and added, "Save for a few jump scares, there's an overt restraint with the horror. The PG-13 rating also dampens what kills we do get. Those looking for the unexpected likely won't find it here, though that doesn't make it any less fun."
USA Todays Brian Truitt gave the film three out of four stars, also lauding its effects and satirical elements. A.A. Dowd of
Chron.com noted the presence of "some real ideas trickling through the film's B-movie code", and wrote that, "if the film is rarely very frightening (the kill scenes [...] lack both suspense and true holy-shit grisliness), it often works like gangbusters as an over-the-top horror comedy whose fun rests on a toy box full of priceless leering-doll reaction shots and cutting remarks."
The New York Times Jason Zinoman noted the film as featuring "some absurd dialogue" and a "by-the-book conclusion", but commended its tone and wrote that Johnstone "doesn't go for elaborate suspense sequences or truly intense scares. He wants to please, not rattle. And while there are some hints at social commentary on how modern mothers and fathers use technology to outsource parenting, this movie is smart enough to never take itself too seriously." Tyler Doupe of
Dread Central gave the film three out of five stars, lamenting its horror elements as lacking and its human characters as "somewhat two-dimensional", but writing that its comedic elements, "combined with the eventual build to an exciting conclusion, made the film worth my time." Randy Myers of
The Mercury News gave the film two out of four stars, writing that it "stocks up on jump scares and keeps the violence PG-13, but fails to make us care about any of the humans in the path of M3GAN." M3GAN has been described as a
gay icon or a queer icon. Erik Piepenburg of
The New York Times wrote that "women like M3gan, the gorgeous and loyal but messy and insolent ones", are the type of women gay men are protective of. Jack King of
GQ described M3GAN as being "factory made" as a queer icon, such as the use of gay-friendly terminology on Twitter. Screenwriter Akela Cooper, in an interview with
SFX Magazine, attributed the gay icon status to the "found family" motif of the film, though Asyia Iftikhar of
PinkNews attributed it to M3GAN's
campiness.
Accolades At the
2023 MTV Movie & TV Awards,
M3GAN was nominated for
Best Villain (M3GAN). The film was nominated in three categories at the 2023
Golden Trailer Awards: "Family" (Inside Job) for Best Horror, and "Bringing Life To M3GAN" (The Fabulous Group) and "Meet M3GAN" (Paradise Creative) for Best Digital – Horror / Thriller. It won the Best Digital – Horror/Thriller category for "Getting Hacked".
M3GAN won Best Horror at the
6th Hollywood Critics Association Midseason Film Awards. At the
51st Saturn Awards, the film received two nominations:
Best Science Fiction Film and
Best Performance by a Younger Actor. In 2024, the film won Campiest Flick honors from GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics via the group's
Dorian Awards, where it was also nominated for Genre Film of the Year. ==Future==