‘How is she going to kill people?’: M3GAN screenwriter on creating a new horror icon, and why she’s not a doll like Chucky and Annabelle

M3GAN, a horror movie about a murderous AI doll, has proved a surprise hit at the box office and spawned TikTok videos emulating her creepy dance routine

Screenwriter Akela Cooper talks about making the character different from existing villains and why the original script was ‘way gorier’ than the PG-13 release

Reading Time:5 minutes

M3GAN, an AI child minder played by Amie Donald (above), is the lead character in a horror movie of the same name. Screenwriter Akela Cooper talks about creating the character and making her different from previous on-screen killer dolls Chucky and Annabelle. Photo: Universal Pictures

Published: 7:15pm, 12 Jan 2023

Years ago, after rising through the ranks on genre TV shows such as Grimm and The 100, screenwriter Akela Cooper found herself at a crossroads.

A lifelong horror fan, she’d been putting off writing the two horror features that had been swimming around in her head – until one day, when she committed to putting them on paper, and subsequently worked on them before and after each day of writing on Marvel’s Luke Cage TV series.

The resulting scripts landed her a career-changing meeting at horror director James Wan’s Atomic Monster Productions, home of the Conjuring franchise.

Cooper was hired to write the sci-fi horror film M3GAN, about an AI companion doll gone haywire, and then to pen the giallo-infused horror film Malignant – released on HBO Max last year to cult acclaim – and the upcoming Warner Bros sequel The Nun 2.

(From left) Violet McGraw as Cady, Amie Donald as M3GAN, and Allison Williams as Gemma in a still from M3GAN. Photo: Universal Pictures

M3GAN – short for Model 3 Generative Android – is an uncannily childlike robot invented as a parenting aid, that fulfils the roles of babysitter, guardian and “best friend”.

In the movie, roboticist Gemma (Allison Williams) tests her creation on her recently orphaned niece Cady (Violet McGraw), but when M3GAN becomes self-aware a techno nightmare ensues.

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