M3GAN 2.0 will feature a lengthy time jump, with the exact number of years being recently confirmed by NBCUniversal at CinemaCon 2025. The upcoming film will be a direct sequel to the first film, which was released in 2023. The official trailer for M3GAN 2.0 was already revealed to the public, teasing a showdown between M3GAN and a new AI robot.
At CinemaCon 2025, during Universal's official panel, details regarding M3GAN 2.0 were revealed, including the amount of time that has passed between the first movie and the upcoming title. However, there seems to be some sort of discrepancy, as two different timelines were officially mentioned. According to NBCUniversal, M3GAN 2.0 will take place two years after the artificial intelligence robot went on her killing spree.
Just one sentence later, in the same paragraph, NBCUniversal also mentioned that Violet McGraw's Cady will be 14 in the upcoming film. On the back of the DVD box for M3GAN, it was confirmed that Cady was only eight years old at the beginning of that film. Later on in the movie, though, it is revealed that Cady is nine years old, meaning she had a birthday sometime during the events of the movie.
So, since Cady is nine in M3GAN, that would mean she would only be 11 if M3GAN 2.0 is set two years after the first movie. NBCUniversal and Universal Pictures both stated that the film would take place two years later, but both also revealed that Cady will be 14 in M3GAN 2.0:
"Two years after M3GAN, a marvel of artificial intelligence, went rogue and embarked on a murderous (and impeccably choreographed) rampage and was subsequently destroyed, M3GAN’s creator Gemma (Allison Williams) has become a high-profile author and advocate for government oversight of A.I. Meanwhile, Gemma’s niece Cady (Violet McGraw), now 14, has become a teenager, rebelling against Gemma’s overprotective rules."
The statements do contradict one another, but the bottom line is that there will be a time jump between the first movie and M3GAN 2.0. Based on the information Universal Pictures has released about the film, that time jump will either be two years or five years.
M3GAN 2.0 also stars Allison Williams as Gemma (Cady's aunt and M3GAN's creator) and Ivanna Sakhno as Amelia, the new AI robot who will be going on a killing spree of her own. The film will see Gemma forced to give M3GAN a new body after M3GAN's technology was stolen by a defense contractor and used to build an even more lethal AI weapon called Amelia. The film will be released on June 27, 2025, and is expected to perform well at the box office following the first movie's success, which even impacted other AI-centered films like Subservience.
What is ME3GAN 2.0 Sequel's True Timeline?
Due to the contradiction in M3GAN 2.0's official synopsis, it seems impossible to nail down exactly when M3GAN 2.0 will take place. It will either be two or five years after the original film, but one of those seems more likely based on other details revealed in the synopsis.
Universal has alluded that a major plot point of M3GAN 2.0 will be that Cady is now rebellious against her aunt. Most of the time, children are considered rebellious during their teenage years. If Cady were to be 11 in the new movie, she may go against some things Gemma says or wants, but it would be more likely to dub her as rebellious if she were 14.
It is also worth noting that Cady actress Violet McGraw was only nine and 10 years old during the production of the first film (she had a birthday while filming was going on in 2021). During M3GAN 2.0's filming, McGraw was 13. It is not uncommon for actors to play characters a bit younger than they are, but in this case, it seems more likely that McGraw would be playing a 14-year-old version of her character since she does look quite a bit older than she did in M3GAN.
So, the most likely scenario seems to be that M3GAN 2.0 will take place five years after the events of the first film. However, it is possible that it will be set only two years later in the timeline.
Read about whether Chucky stars think the two characters could ever cross over with each other here.
