Bad ROBOT?
THE LAST TIME WE SAW HER, SHE WAS A BRUTAL — AND VERY SASSY — KILLING MACHINE. NOW, THOUGH, WITH AN EVEN MORE DIABOLICAL AI LUNATIC AT LARGE, IT’S TIME FORM3GAN 2.0. GET READY FOR THE MOTHER OF ALL GLOW-UPS
WORDS CHRIS HEWITT
Clockwise from main: Meet the new and improved, upgraded M3GAN;
Allison Williams can’t quite put her finger on the moment when she knew that M3GAN — the all-singing, all-dancing, all-slaying doll who lent her name to the movie of the same name — had become a bona fide icon. It might have been after the launch of the movie’s trailer, in October 2022. “People were making memes about her already,” Williams remembers.
Or maybe it was after the movie came out in January 2023, and quickly became one of Blumhouse’s biggest hits, with a worldwide gross of $180 million (from a $12 million budget). Maybe it was the moment Williams — who starred as Gemma, the well-intentioned creator of M3GAN — appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show and was interviewed by the host in full M3GAN costume. (“Drew Barrymore crawling on the ground towards me in a M3GAN costume was something I’ll never forget.”) Or maybe it was the time when Saturday Night Live did a sketch, just two weeks after M3GAN opened, in which Williams showed up alongside Aubrey Plaza. “We were just like, ‘This is surreal. This is incredible,’” she says. That sketch is notable for a couple of reasons, and not just because it’s under four minutes long, a rarity for SNL. It wasn’t just a riff on M3GAN; it was a trailer for a spoof sequel, in which Plaza played another version of M3GAN who goes toe-to-toe with the original model. And its title? ‘M3GAN 2.0’. “From the moment that sketch came out, we were like, ‘That’s probably what the sequel is called!’” laughs Williams.
Sure enough, fast-forward just over two years later and Williams once again finds herself starring in something called M3GAN 2.0. But this time it’s the real deal, pitting M3GAN against a newer, faster, stronger, more lethal model. Not played by Aubrey Plaza, but Ahsoka’s Ivanna Sakhno. “It’s the ultimate mean-girl showdown,” promises Sakhno, “while remaining a very campy, cunty movie.” Let’s go, girls.
“That’s absolutely fair,” laughs Gerard Johnstone, director of both M3GAN movies, when he hears of Sakhno’s succinct summary of his movie. “That’s probably the best appraisal of the tone I’ve heard so far.”