Listen, Universal Studios thought they had something special in “M3GAN,” but they certainly didn’t think it would open to over $30 million dollars with the historic blockbuster “Avatar: The Way of Water” still in the marketplace. And despite their conservative public estimates (high teens), even rival studios had it only in a low $20 million+ range. Six days into its release, it’s already at $52.5 million off a reported $12 million production budget. And listen, this wasn’t a movie the NBCUniversal division was buying multiple NFL spots for. This is on track to be a massive and profitable hit for Universal and their producing partner, Blumhouse. And while the latter and producer James Wan have gotten a ton of credit, one key contributor who probably deserves a little more is its director, Gerard Johnstone.
Admittedly barely known out of New Zealand, Johnstone gained some fame in the horror community for his 2014 genre comedy “Housebound.” Still, Jason Blumhouse and Wan were taking a chance to put this studio thriller in his hands. During a conversation earlier this week, Johnstone talked about his specific contributions (the “Titanium” moment was his) and the countless hours he spent perfecting the robot doll’s distinct look. And, yes, he’s down to return for the inevitable sequel.
“All I can say is what’s already out there, which is that James certainly had some ideas,” Johnstone says of another installment. “There were so many ideas that I had that we couldn’t squeeze into the first movie and so many more directions we wanted to go. We wanted to make a tight, entertaining 90-minute movie, and there were so many facets of M3gan’s character we just didn’t have time to explore. So the chance to do another one is very exciting. I’m in talks to do it, and I really do hope it happens. And I think, especially now that I know that there’s a real appetite for it, that certainly helps.”
Over the course of the interview, discover which key crew member lived 20 minutes up the road from him, the difficulty of getting a killer robot doll movie made in 30 days, his thoughts on whether it’s a comedy, and much, much more.
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The Playlist: What was your reaction to the box office? Because tracking showed a really nice opening, but it didn’t show that.
Gerard Johnstone: Just my face is sore from grinning so much. I’m like; I can’t believe this has happened. Yeah, you would’ve seen what we were hoping for. We were hoping for 20 [million] would’ve been a really good result. So yeah, to get $30.4 million, it’s just, I don’t know, it’s phenomenal. But I think it just speaks to just how much everyone really loves this little lady.
And it’s on track to earn a $100 million movie worldwide. Did you feel like “M3GAN,” as it expands across the world, do you feel like she has, no pun intended, universal appeal?
Well, we’d have to ask Universal and see if they’ll fly me to these places so I can witness it in person, and I wouldn’t say no. But yeah, my hope is that they will. I think it’s a film that’s about the moment and the struggles that we are having with technology. Everyone’s going through it, whether you’re in New Zealand or Mexico, or the States. This movie has a lot to say about the moment we are living in, but at the same time, it’s a good excuse to just go back into a movie theater with a group of strangers and have a good time.
This script comes your way. What was your initial reaction when you read it?
My initial reaction was that it just had a lot of potential. That it was about something. And it was just a really fun sandbox to play in, and I thought this was finally a project that came my way that would just let me have a chance to make a movie that’s about something. As a filmmaker, making a movie is so tough, it’s so grueling, and a lot of the time you kind of lose sight of why we’re all here. So when a movie is anchored in something that’s relevant, which this script was, it gave me all the reason I needed to do it really.
So you read the script, did it feel – I am going to use a term that I know is sort of popular in your neck of the words – did it feel cheeky to you?
I think the fact that it’s this doll is inherently cheeky and so much of that, you don’t realize until you do it. It’s like, “Oh yeah, well, she was always going to be funny,” obviously, because when I thought about how intelligent she was and all her emergent capabilities and the look of her, I was imagining this kind of super sophisticated creation. But at the end of the day, yeah, it’s a goof-off and we try to elevate it as much as we can. But yeah, it’s a fun good time. It is a killer doll movie. They gave me the script that I was given, it’s the same story in the movie. All the same, beats are there, none of that changed. But what I brought to it was definitely my own sense of humor and my own experiences as a parent. I wanted to put as many of my own struggles and anxieties and frustrations that I was having as a parent into this movie. Parenting in the age of AI and iPads. And James was great about that, and so was Blumhouse, me putting as much as of my own sensibilities into it as possible and assuring me that that was what they liked about my last movie, so they were great in that regard.
Are you O.K. though with fans of the movie or people telling their friends to go see it because it’s a comedy instead of the horror aspects?
Yeah, my background is in comedy, so it’s funny because I’m in this horror lane only because my first movie, “Housebound.” It was a funny idea, a teen reprobate on home detention with her insufferable mother, home detention in a house that also happens to be haunted. So, in order to make that movie work, you had to treat it as both a comedy and a horror. It was funny, but it was also kind of a slow-burn mystery. All those horror things were things that I had to learn. Those weren’t skills that I had innately coming out of the gate. So, I love that people are talking about how funny this movie is. I would like to think that’s what I bring to it. I would like to do more comedy. I wanted everyone to know it was a comedy. My fear was that the trailer would come out and people would think it was a straight horror movie. So to see the dancing, that was why Universal was such geniuses for putting the dancing in the movie, sneaking that in there, and then that … It was almost like a litmus test to see whether or not people were into it. And it turned out they were very into it. And also that helped the fact that that trailer was recut just helped people. It helped Universal, I guess it meant that the subsequent trailers were so much kookier and funnier.
Was there any part of M3gan specifically, her design, her voice, anything that was most important to you in making the film?
It was all important. Every aspect of her visually, that’s what they hire me to do. It’s like, what is she going to look like? Obviously James Wan has approval on everything, but they’re essentially hiring me for that very reason. To make those agonizing decisions and look at thousands of references and spend hours on Pinterest. It was really hard to think because we could have gone in a million different directions. And you know what? I kind of think to some degree, any number of them would’ve worked because M3gan works just by just the sheer power of her personality. But yeah, it was very important to me that we were creating something that was iconic and that was carving out her own space. I knew that comparisons to Chucky would be inevitable, which was why it was so important that we weren’t being overly goofy or campy, and that M3gan had a sense of elegance about her. That was very important. And a lot of my time in prep was spent working on her dress and just getting every kind of little detail right.
This is the first “studio” film you’ve made. Was it helpful for your own sanity to shoot on the other side of the world?
Yeah, I guess it was. Originally we were going to shoot this thing in Montreal, but then when COVID happened and New Zealand was the only place that was actually COVID-free. So it made a whole lot of sense to come here. But it also meant it was tough because everyone wanted to come here and “Avatar” was here, and “Lord of the Rings” were here and we’re a very small country, so it was actually really hard to rustle up the crew. But we did it. And it was great. It was a hard shoot. It was a tight shoot, Blumhouse movies, there’s a model and you have to respect that and everyone knows what is going into it. You’ve got like 30 days and we pushed that as much as we could, but we are dealing with puppets, children, and animals, and I had never worked with all three of them at once, and it was a really tough shoot. But Universal loved the movie. It wasn’t quite finished, there were a few little bits and pieces that we needed to get, but they loved the movie so much that they supported us and let us come back to New Zealand and shoot some more. And yeah, I’m very proud of the local crew and just the incredible work they did. And so many of them, the casters from New Zealand as well. And I don’t think many people spot it.
I actually thought you guys shot this in Atlanta. I had no idea that it was in New Zealand until today.
We shot one component of it in Atlanta. Unfortunately Violet couldn’t come back for the reshoot, so I had to go to Atlanta to get one remaining piece of the puzzle. And on the way there I got COVID, so I ended up directing her from my hotel room on a laptop, which was challenging, but it worked out. But it was kind of just one more insane challenge. But we had such good luck with this movie. We wrapped the film two days before COVID hit New Zealand, so there’s that. And we also, had Amy Donald who performed all of M3gan’s bigger movements, and who would’ve thought this 10-year-old girl who could act and dance and do martial arts and gymnastics, was 20 minutes up the road from where I live? It’s insane. Yeah.
I did not know that. That is crazy. There are moments that people have already fixated on or are obsessed with. One is when M3gan sings “Titanium” by Sia. Was that in the script? Were you worried that the music rights wouldn’t come through at all?
No, it wasn’t in the script, but it was just one of those things where I just felt like, well, if one of these dolls is going to exist, these are the sorts of things that it should be able to do. And that song just popped into my head as perfect, the perfect kind of lullaby that M3gan could sing to a child that was both enamored and somewhat concerned about her as a caregiver. And it was one of those nice things where no one said no, and it sounded like there was never going to be an issue. And I have to take my hat off to Andrea Von Foerster, our music supervisor, who knows, there may have been some drama behind the scenes that I was blissfully unaware of. But no, once I asked to put it in, there was no pushback.
You were very lucky then because I’m sure that it doesn’t always work out that way.
No, we didn’t get everything. We wanted “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and we didn’t get that one.
The ones you think are the easiest to get rights to are usually the hardest. My last question for you is, obviously they leave the door open that another version of M3gan or M3gan may return in some other form. Are you up for coming back for a sequel? Have you guys already brainstormed ideas?
All I can say is what’s already out there, which is that James certainly had some ideas. There were so many ideas that I had that we couldn’t squeeze into the first movie, and so many more directions we wanted to go. We wanted to make a tight, entertaining 90-minute movie, and there were so many facets of M3gan’s character we just didn’t have time to explore. So the chance to do another one is very exciting. I’m in talks to do it, and I really do hope it happens. And I think, especially now that I know that there’s a real appetite for it, that certainly helps.
“M3GAN” is in theaters nationwide
