M3GAN 2.0 has gumption. The sequel to the Blumhouse production doesn’t play it safe by rehashing a formula. Instead, writer/director Gerard Johnstone rips up any atypical sequel blueprint and goes for broke in an action-comedy: a mad tech bro or two, a kitchen that kills (thanks to AI), and the proud influence of Steven Segal’s finest pictures.
M3GAN (Jenna Davis) never truly died. Silicon Valley and beyond are still reeling from her dance-happy killing spree from the first movie, though. Gemma (Allison Williams) wrestles with guilt over her murderous creation, while M3GAN’s former BFF, Cady (Violet McGraw), struggles with the pains of teenhood. The two revive M3GAN when a killer bot, AMELIA (Ivanna Sakhno), is even more lethal than the original M3GAN ever was. A la Terminator 2: Judgement Day, the titular villain becomes the unexpected hero.
We recently spoke with Johnstone about respecting the genres you play with, tech bro culture, and cultivating callbacks that make narrative sense.
You and the team really went for broke with the sequel.
It’s a rare gift to be able to make a movie and have a character that people love. I wanted to give everyone the most epic movie we could with the resources we had. Not just in terms of scale and set pieces, but also story and comedy. I wanted to pack in as much as I could.
The opening shot reveals we’re “somewhere on the Turkish-Iranian border.” Right from the start, tongue firmly planted in cheek. The sequel confidently goes up right to the edge of parody.
I’m quietly thinking, okay, this is absurd. In the first movie, we’re in a small Seattle toy company, and now, here we are, opening up on the border of Iran and Turkey. The only way to pull this off is to commit, to make sure I have a reverence for those movies. I learned that on my first movie, Housebound. It was a horror-comedy. The comedy was there, but without the horror, everything was falling flat. It felt like there were no stakes, that it had no soul. If you’re going to do multiple genres, you have to treat both genres with respect.
What were some of the pressures for delivering a worthy M3GAN sequel?
The pressure was on to deliver something quickly while it was fresh in everyone’s minds, and there was still love for that character. We wanted to make sure that the follow-up didn’t take too long, but this is a really ambitious film. It was difficult to write. I had a lot of ideas that came relatively quickly, but weaving them into a cohesive narrative — the throughline — was the tricky part.
What was the throughline that brought all the ideas together?
It’s motivations. We have two robots and a lot of story. We have AMELIA, and we have M3GAN, and you’ve obviously got a backstory for both. We also have this family triangle of Gemma, M3GAN, and Katie, and we have our supporting characters, which we wanted to give a little bit of an arc to this time. The first movie was simple, almost a modern fairy tale. With this one, I wanted to say more about the world we’re living in and AI. And so, it was global. I was doing a lot of research. I’m writing about things that I don’t innately have a sense of.
For example?
I think one of the most fun things was looking at where technology was in the ‘80s and having a little bit of a homage to when robots were cute. I remember when robots were fun, so we managed to squeeze that into this movie as well.
How’d conversations with AI experts evolve from when you first spoke with them for the first movie to the sequel?
After the first one, I got welcomed into the tech community more. They appreciated that we didn’t do the tacky movie science — we actually got into it and used terms that they understood. And so, I ended up visiting the Google campus and went around Silicon Valley with my tech consultant. I wanted to have all the cool-sounding verbiage. They’re blue-sky thinkers. A lot of the biggest people in tech don’t even know how to code. It’s not really their thing. They’ve just got big brains and are thinking about the big picture. My biggest takeaway was they were saying AI is a projection of our own hopes and fears, which informed this movie. I started to think about M3GAN as not an evil doll, but an AI that’s neither good nor bad — that is just really following an objective.
Without naming any names, did any tech bros inspire one of the evil “geniuses” in the film, a man with implanted abs, Alton Appleton (Jemaine Clement)?
Yeah. The problem I have sometimes with a lot of these people is they want to be the first to do something, the first to break through. They’re interested in legacy. “This is the future, let’s just run towards it.” Which is fine for them, because they’ve already bought their bunker if it all goes to sh*t. For the rest of us, we’re dealing in this future that is harder to come to terms with. The arrogance really gets to me – how they’re our new overlords. One of the things that cracks me up is that you now notice that these guys can almost buy the body they always wanted. Giving Jemaine like Joe Rogan’s pecs was a particular delight to me.
[Laughs] Was the prosthetics team influenced by Joe Rogan’s pecs?
Yeah, he was. It’s an impressive physique on a middle-aged man’s body.
It’s one of those creative choices, like the nod to Evil Dead II with the crawling robot hand, that just screams your taste. Even after the success of the first movie, given all the expectations, do you still just try to make what you think you’ll like?
People say to me, are you worried about the fans? No, I’m the biggest fan. The director or writer of the film should be the biggest fan. Usually, you are also your own biggest critic. I agree with the sh***y reviews. I love the great reviews and think they’re correct, but also, I read the bad reviews, and it’s like, yes, yes. F**k, you’re right. They found me. You almost discard the good ones. But first, when I’m writing, I’m my own biggest critic. I’m looking for the things where I’m going to fail. I’m looking to not give people a reason to hate this movie, but at the same time, I want it to make me laugh.
What’s that process of discovery like for you?
You can’t do what’s been done. Also, you’ve got to do the third or fourth idea. The first idea that pops into your head is usually not the one you can go with. You’ve got to keep cycling through until you find the one that no one’s expecting. You want to be the first in line to see this movie. Please yourself first, and if it works for you, others will come along for the ride — hopefully.
What’s your method for making sure that callbacks, like M3GAN dancing or singing, feel as organic as possible in the story?
People were waiting for those two things, so I was happy to weave those things in. Outside of that, I also think people will have a great time with M3GAN being a bodiless entity and exploring all its different forms. It’s funny, because that was one of the things the studio was concerned about — she’s not in a body until halfway through the movie. But she’s a presence. M3GAN is an AI entity, so she can be all these different things. Her presence is felt even when she’s this digital hologram floating in the ether. Obviously, trapping her in this very cute AI kids’ toy was a lot of fun.
M3GAN 2.0 is in theaters now.
Featured image: Director Gerard Johnstone on the set of M3GAN 2.0.
