The Marvel Cinematic Universe might be the single most commercially successful franchise in the history of cinema, and arguably one of the most consistent given that the series is 30 movies deep and has only seen one installment fall below the Fresh threshold on Rotten Tomatoes, but the spandex-clad superheroes ain’t got nothing on killer doll M3GAN.
Already predicted for instant cult classic status long before release, the collaboration between horror icons James Wan and Jason Blum has been riding a wave of momentum and buzz generated by an inspired marketing campaign, with a thousand memes having already been launched.
Of course, all the hype in the world isn’t worth a damn thing if the end product isn’t up to scratch, but M3GAN has got those bases covered, too. In fact, the cybernetic slasher’s current Rotten Tomatoes score of 98 percent is higher than any feature-length entry in the MCU, and doesn’t she know it.
Not exactly a like-for-like comparison, but M3GAN‘s surprising PG-13 rating does at least ensure that both the murder-happy mannequin and the MCU’s masses of heroes can be enjoyed by exactly the same target audience. Not exactly something we were expecting to see, but an unexpectedly welcome development nonetheless.
Unlike Kevin Feige’s outfit, though, the hotly-anticipated terror won’t be debuting at number one at the box office, seeing as there’s a small independent drama called Avatar: The Way of Water continuing to hoover up the headlines and dollars. That being said, we can expect a franchise to be launched immediately, seeing as M3GAN has her hooks into pop culture already.