In theaters since Wednesday, “M3GAN” is the new production from James Wan and Jason Blum, centering on a cyber killer doll.
M3GAN by Gerard Johnstone
With Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Ronny Chieng…
What is it about ? M3GAN is a technological miracle, a cyber doll whose artificial intelligence is programmed to be the ideal companion for children and the safest ally for parents. Designed by Gemma, the brilliant roboticist from a toy company, M3GAN can listen, observe and learn while being both friend and teacher, playmate and protector of the child she is bonded to. . When Gemma suddenly becomes responsible for her 8-year-old niece, Cady, whose parents have suddenly passed away, she’s definitely not ready for her role. Overwhelmed and under pressure at work, she decides to tie the still-developing M3GAN prototype to the little girl, in a desperate attempt to solve her problems on both fronts. A decision that will have terrible consequences.
A doll larger than life
2022 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS. All Rights Reserved.
To create the Model 3 Generative Android – M3GAN for short – it was necessary to mobilize several teams from different branches of production, namely: an actor, special effects, Animatronics and dolls.
Gerard Johnstone wanted M3GAN to be visually unsettling. He wanted us to constantly wonder if she was played by a real person. He had the idea of hiring an actress to embody the doll in slightly longer or wider shots.
But it was very difficult to find a child who could move like a robot, dance, fight, all while learning 4 to 5 pages of dialogue a day. Miranda Rivers, the casting director, unearthed the rare pearl in the person of Amie Donald, for whom it was the first experience in the cinema.
At all costs, the Animatronic and the actress had to be connected. A team of 7 people was in charge of the facial expressions and the dialogues of the Animatronic. In the wider shots, Amie wore a facial prosthesis which was then digitally animated. But for most of the close-ups they wanted to favor the Animatronic made by the company Morot.
Between Annabelle and Terminator
2022 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS. All Rights Reserved.
It was the film’s producers, Michael Clear, Judson Scott and James Wan, who came up with the idea for a new killer doll movie in the offices of their Atomic Monster production house. Their ambition was to create a cross between Annabelle and Terminator, prioritizing the fear of reckless progress in science over that of the supernatural.
Horror specialists
2022 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS. All Rights Reserved.
M3GAN brings together Blumhouse, Jason Blum’s production company, and Atomic Monster, that of James Wan, two key figures in contemporary horror cinema. The two men had already collaborated on the Insidious saga.
They called on New Zealand director Gerard Johnstone, noticed with the horror comedy Housebound in 2014. This mixture of horror and humor seduced Jason Blum: “For M3GAN, if the idea of a toy robot that kills everyone who crosses its path is terrifying, it is not entirely devoid of dark humor. It needed a director who could understand the finesse of this humor for the film to take on its full magnitude. Gerard immediately understood and it’s the kind of humor that he masters to perfection”.
References
2022 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS. All Rights Reserved.
Gerard Johnstone was inspired by noir films featuring femme fatales and antiheroes such as Gone Girl or The Hand on the Cradle, but also drew on The Curse, “because for me there is a little Antichrist side in M3GAN “, as well as Pinocchio, “which makes Gemma a kind of modern feminine Geppetto”.
A promising young actress
2022 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS. All Rights Reserved.
Facing the terrifying doll, we find the young Violet McGraw, revealed by The Haunting of Hill House, and seen in Black Widow (where she plays Florence Pugh as a child) and Doctor Sleep.
Despite her young age, the actress was very comfortable on the set, as evidenced by her playmate Allison Williams: “How to describe Miss Violet McGraw… in fact I was not at all prepared for her sense of humor! Her sense of repartee left me dry on the spot! She is able to put you in a club like no other with a confusing naturalness! It took me a little time to adapt to get used to the fact that her jokes were coming out of such a young child’s mouth!”