M3GAN director on inventing killer doll's viral dance: 'It was one of those crazy, sleep-deprived, 3 a.m. thoughts'
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When the good folks responsible for the horror film M3GAN (out Jan. 6) released their first trailer in October, they hoped it might cause a bit of a stir, thanks to the gymnastic dancing of the title character, a robot-doll designed to resemble a young girl.
As it happened, they underestimated: The clip became an internet sensation, inspiring memes and mash-ups, and turning the android into an instant icon.
"We had internally come up with memes to distribute, but we didn't end up needing to deploy them, because people started making their own," says M3GAN star and executive producer Allison Williams (Get Out). "You can't even dream that big when you're doing something like this. That was just such an exciting day. It was proof of concept."
Geoff Short/Universal
In the movie, Williams plays a roboticist named Gemma, suddenly tasked with looking after her young niece Cady (Violet McGraw) after the child's parents are killed in a car accident. To help Cady with her anxiety and loneliness, Gemma deploys a Model 3 Generative Android (M3GAN, for short), an experimental robot of her own creation, designed to act as a friend and guardian. The android soon becomes worryingly protective of her charge, visiting some severe ear trauma on a bully named Brandon (Jack Cassidy) who is mean to Cady. (See our exclusive image above.)
Director Gerard Johnstone explains, "The whole point of the Brandon scene was to [show] you can give M3GAN all these things you don't want to do, but you can also give her things you can't do, like clip a kid behind the ear if he's being mean to your kid. So we take that to the nth degree with M3GAN."
The idea behind the film was originally dreamed up by producer James Wan in cahoots with colleagues at his Atomic Monster Productions company.
"One of the things we like to do at Atomic Monster is, at the end of the week, sit around and chat about films," says the 45-year-old Wan. "At one of these sessions, we came up with the idea of doing a killer-doll movie."
Wan, of course, has experience with horror movies involving dolls: He directed 2004's Saw and 2013's The Conjuring, the latter which introduced audiences to the possessed toy Annabelle.
"We joke that I get branded a lot as the killer-doll guy, but I've never technically made a movie about a doll that kills — it's always possessed by some sort of evil spirit," clarifies Wan. "We thought it would be fun to do a movie that is basically Annabelle meets the Terminator."
Wan asked writer Akela Cooper (Malignant) to work on the script and teamed with Blumhouse to produce the film.
"If James ever calls with a scary movie, we're predisposed to be very interested, especially one starring a doll," says Blumhouse founder Jason Blum. "So even before we read the script, we were excited about it. But then the script was so good — it's scary, it touches on something we're all talking about right now, and it was funny. It checked every box for us."
New Zealand director Johnstone was known to Wan and Blum for his twisty 2014 horror film Housebound.
"I'm a big fan of Gerard, I love Housebound," says Wan. "M3GAN needed someone who could take Akela's terrific script and execute it in a way that actually works. Because it's not an easy movie to make work."
Geoffrey Short/Universal Pictures 'M3GAN'
Williams was attracted to the project by both the script and the opportunity to work again with Blumhouse, which had produced Get Out.
"I had such an amazing experience with Get Out that I was thrilled to have another chance to work with them," she says. "Then throw James Wan in for good measure and it was just irresistible."
Johnstone shot M3GAN in New Zealand last year. The filmmaker is cagey about exactly how the film's robot was brought to life (or robo-life anyway) onscreen
"I can't talk about it yet, I have to wait until everyone sees the movie, and the illusion isn't broken," he says. "But it was very complicated, I can tell you that much."
Johnstone is happy to reveal that he came up with the bright idea of having M3GAN dance in the film.
"It was one of those crazy, sleep-deprived, 3 a.m. thoughts," he says. "Wouldn't it kind of be funny if the soundtrack suddenly became real and M3GAN ended up busting a move to whatever music was playing. It was just something that everyone embraced and loved."
While Johnstone has "lots of thoughts" about a possible sequel, they'll have to wait until after the director has spent some quality time with his offspring.
"This is a film about people who don't spend enough time with their children," he says, "so that's what I'm going to focus on."
M3GAN arrives in theaters Jan. 6. Watch the film's latest trailer below.
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