A toy designed to give comfort and emotional support to a child after the loss of their parents – that’s what the M3gan robot doll is actually made for. But the 3 Generative Android model soon begins to take its programming all too seriously.
When Gemma (Allison Williams), who cares for her eight-year-old niece Cady (Violet McGraw), instructs her to eat the vegetables on the evening pizza, the girlish android immediately rushes to his charge’s aid: “According to recent studies, children who need to eat vegetables than adults are more likely to eat fewer vegetables.”
Underneath this table talk, a conflict swells, which, according to an idea from the horror genre star and producer Wan, soon erupts in violence and leads to full body bags: M3gan takes her job so seriously that she can no longer be controlled.
“Chucky” for a new generation
For fans, Wan has been considered a killer doll specialist since the Annabelle series, an idea that references the classic Chucky (1988). This perception gave him the idea for “M3gan”, as Wan told the online platform Deadline: “In my previous puppet films, they didn’t kill anyone. Annabelle never gets up and walks around. Everyone says I’m the killer doll type. So I said I’m making a killer doll movie for a whole new generation. Today’s kids didn’t grow up with Chucky like we did.”
While the now seven-part Chucky series is supernatural – the serial killer uses voodoo spells to transfer his spirit into the doll to continue raging as the doll – “M3gan” touches on far more contemporary fears.
Not only since the powerful bot “ChatGPT” has it been widely discussed whether artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly uncontrollable for humans – the uneasiness that machines could take over and rebel against humans has been an integral part of popular fantasies since modern times. From Karel Capek’s drama “RUR”, in which the artificial word “robot” appeared for the first time in 1921, to nto sci-fi classics like “Matrix”, novels like Ian McEwan’s novel “Maschinen wie ich” and horror shockers like “M3gan ‘ This idea is constantly being updated.
A blockbuster with TikTok
The extremely successful US theatrical release proves the concept right. M3gan grossed an estimated $30.2 million in its first weekend, while Avatar: The Way of Water continues to top the box office. There is already talk of a sequel.
In addition to the scary game with the fear of machines, the social media platform TikTok has also contributed to the hype surrounding “M3gan”: In one scene, shortly before the bloody climax of the film, the killer robot begins to dance: M3gan rolls her spine, swings hips and spins in circles with hands. For days, videos of users imitating the dance have been circulating on TikTok under the hashtag “#m3gandance”. Actually, the bizarre scene is a human achievement: Behind M3gan is the twelve-year-old actress Amie Donald.
