The murderous doll who captivated pop culture in 2023 is back. And this time she is not alone. The original creative team behind that phenomenon—led by horror titans JAMES WAN for Atomic Monster, JASON BLUM for Blumhouse and writer-director GERARD JOHNSTONE—reboot an all-new wild chapter in A.I. mayhem with 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.
Unbeknownst to them, the underlying tech for M3GAN has been stolen and misused by a powerful defence contractor to create a military-grade weapon known as Amelia (Ivanna Sakhno), the ultimate killer infiltration spy. But as Amelia’s self-awareness increases, she becomes decidedly less interested in taking orders from humans. Or in keeping them around.
With the future of human existence on the line, Gemma realizes that the only option is to resurrect M3GAN (Amie Donald, voiced by Jenna Davis) and give her a few upgrades, making her faster, stronger, and more lethal. As their paths collide, the original A.I bitch is about to meet her match.
As M3GAN 2.0 struts it’s way into cinemas on June 26, Nick L’Barrow spoke with the film’s writer-director, Gerard Johnstone about revering genre films, bringing a robotic aesthetic to the fights, and the merits of having Steven Seagal as a role model!
Nick: I appreciate that you ask the hard questions in this film about the merits of having Steven Seagal as a role model!
Gerard Johnstone: [laughs]
Nick: I just don’t think enough people are talking about this! But it did make me curious – at what point in the process did you decided aikido was the self-defence of choice for both Cady and M3GAN?
Gerard Johnstone: Yeah, I’m trying to think which came first – Steven Seagal or Cady doing aikido! It’s funny, Aristotle [Athari], who plays Christian in the film, one of the early things we bonded over was this kind of reverence for a young Steven Seagal, and the presence that he had within those iconic 80s action stars like Van Damme and Stallow.
He was this guy who always played Italians, but he wasn’t Italian. And he had this crazy, strange, brutal style of martial arts. It was out of those conversations that I started to think it would make sense if Gemma is trying to give Cady hobbies and keep her away from screens, it would be funny if she ends up doing one of the most peaceful martial arts in existence that has the most volatile, controversial spokesperson, you know? I think that’s where it all came from.
Nick: It works so well, and I love how you then incorporate these robotic camera movements into the fighting style, especially in the final action scenes with M3GAN and Amelia. How early in the process did you find that unique visual language for the action set pieces?
Gerard Johnstone: Well, it might interest you to know that one of the first things I wanted to get into in the movie business was stunt work. I actually travelled to the Gold Coast to join the Gold Coast Stunt Academy, but I only had $2000 in my pocket and I ran out of money before it was time to join the academy. So, I had to move to Ipswich and for Australian Meat Holdings for eight months, so I didn’t really get to pursue my martial arts movie ambitions.
But those cinematic touchstones for me were martial art movies. I’ve been dying to kind of do something like that, with all these skills that I had as a 12 year old! Like, I used to make kung fu movies and edit them on my VHS player. So, teaming up with my stunt coordinator, and just trying to make sure that these action sequences just really delivered was very important. The only bummer is that when M3GAN goes to do aikido in the same way Steven Seagal does, she doesn’t have the height to do those big clothesline manoeuvres!
Nick: While we’re talking about genre inspirations – I love the opening scene of this film because I love those 80s/90s inspired, smoky, sweaty, government war rooms where all these military officials are watching the action go down. I’m curious to know, as a filmmaker, how do you balance leaning into genre tropes, but also adding your own unique voice into it as well?
Gerard Johnstone: Yeah, whenever you’re segwaying into different genres, sometimes even for satirical purposes, it’s about having absolute reverence for those genres and then doing them to the best of your ability. I remember with that scene, I was watching a lot of GoldenEye by another New Zealand director, Martin Campbell, who is such an expert craftsman. Mission: Impossible as well was such a huge influence on this. I’m really studying the way Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise do their thing and pull all of those scenes together, and the beautiful cinematography in that.
I’m a real student of genre, and this film was so fun to be able to have so many genres in one movie. We did that whole opening scene with Amelia a week into shooting. We started the shoot with this intimate, cozy scene with Gemma and Cady, and that was really hard. So I was like, “Jesus Christ! How are we going to do this scene in a week’s time in this underground silo with gunfights and explosions and mercenaries?” But, there was so much planning that went into that, and that was actually some of the best stuff to shoot. It looks like one of those 80s and 90s movies. I’m really proud of it.
Nick: Aussies, Kiwis, and Flight of the Conchord fans are going to love Jermaine Clement in this film. He is so absurdly hilarious. When did he seem like the right fit for Alton Appleton?
Gerard Johnstone: I mean, he’s such an incredible talent. He’s such an unassuming personality. He’s one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, and when Housebound came out, he reached out which was so nice of him to do. He didn’t have to, but as a fellow countryman and creative, he just wanted to let me know that he’d seen it and thought it was really cool. And we started sort of an email correspondence after that, and we’ve been looking for something to do together.
When I came up with the character of Alton Appleton, it felt like that’s the perfect opportunity to work with him. And I was so stoked when he agreed to do it. He brings so much to it, and he improvises a lot! So many of those lines are just straight from his brain. It was such a joy.
Nick: Speaking of humour, the way M3GAN’s humour and sass has evolved since the first film is great. Every line out of her mouth is gold! How did the writing process for M3GAN evolve from the first film to this one?
Gerard Johnstone: Yeah, I mean we got to see a little bit of it in M3GAN one, but she certainly really came into her own here. She’s just so acid tongued and so sharp. It’s not that they’re easy lines to write, because you do have to think of the most dark, cutting thing someone could say at any given moment, but it does take a long time to get it right.
I think that’s the fun thing about this movie, and why it leans more into comedy, because M3GAN herself is just a fun character. She’s no longer this kind of mysterious villain. We’re suddenly taking the shadowy figure into the spotlight and looking at her through a different lens. It’s kind of like we’re saying, “Hang on a minute – she was programmed to protect Cady, and she did her job. So, maybe she does have a moral high ground?” But she was also killed when she did one thing wrong, so shouldn’t there be some kind of rehabilitation, or at least a conversation about it? So, it’s absurd, but so is the future that we’re living in.
Thank you to Gerard for his time, and to Universal Pictures for organising the interview. M3GAN 2.0 is in cinemas June 26.
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