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Allison Williams, a fan of the Real Housewives franchise, knows this meme-ified Erika Jayne quote well: “Gonna give the gays everything they want.” Between Girls, M3GAN, Fellow Travelers, camp horror film The Perfection, and now M3GAN 2.0, it’s like the actress is doing just that.
“So honored. I really am,” she tells Entertainment Weekly when presented with that quote. “We have very aligned tastes, I think is truly what it is.”
The LGBTQ+ community came out in droves to watch the first M3GAN, which hit theaters in 2022. Between the horror-camp elements, her prowess in the art of throwing shade, a viral dance, and the fact that she slays (albeit literally), queer people of all persuasions claimed this killer doll as their own. Williams, speaking with EW in June ahead of the sequel’s release this weekend, hopes they do right by this community a second time with M3GAN 2.0.
“If we had made a movie to try to ‘give the gays what they want,’ it would’ve been rejected with such fierceness and ferocity,” the actress explains. “It’s just because the first M3GAN we made, we committed to the bit and to her energy and to her persona, and made this fierce trio of ladies who were living to their fullest expression of themselves. That was appealing.”
The real temptation with making a second film, she adds, was to overtly make it a thank you to those, like the LGBTQ+ community, that supported the movie. “That movie would be so annoying to watch and pandering or whatever,” she says. “We had to put our heads down, do it the same way we did it the first time, and hope that we were doing the audience that really put us on the map proud the second time around.”
M3GAN 2.0, written and directed Gerard Johnstone, picks up two years after the events of the first film to introduce AMELIA (Ivanna Sakhno), another killer robot based on stolen designs for M3GAN. The U.S. military tries to use AMELIA as a weapon but quickly loses control when the ‘bot becomes sentient and starts hunting down those responsible for her creation. To stop her, Williams’ Gemma, now an advocate for government oversight of AI, must revive M3GAN and give her some upgrades.
Is it a coincidence that Universal Pictures slated the movie to open on June 27, during LGBTQ Pride Month festivities? “There might be some Machiavellian machinery behind all of this, which I would have to credit marketing, if that is the case,” James Wan, an executive producer on the film through production company Atomic Monster, tells EW separately. “But you’re right! It’s very appropriate.”
Williams, who became more involved with the development of M3GAN 2.0 as a producer, describes those early planning meetings as “me in a room with four straight men in their 40s.”
“The engine behind M3GAN is Gerard Johnstone,” she says. “Talk to him, look at him, and just know that everything that comes out of her mouth really comes from his essence somehow. They are on diagonally different points on a plane of personality types and identities, and I just love that…. It was like, put our heads down, stick to the tone that we thought we cultivated for the first movie, keep most of the hero characters, develop them two years down the line, add some new characters, and then, in the making of the movie, dead serious high stakes. Play the reality of it and then let it be ham after. It’s so hard to describe creatively, but that was kind of the endeavor.”
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They knew M3GAN — brought to life through Jenna Davis (the voice), Amie Donald (the physical actress), practical animatronics, and CG additives — had to dance again. We see her new moves in the trailers as she sports an anime-style pink tech suit and a fierce bob. They also knew she had to sing. That is more of a spoiler at this point.
“That’s her and Marnie’s shared genetic trait,” Williams says of M3GAN and her own Girls character, “their need to sing when no one wants them to.” (See Marnie’s rendition of “Take Me or Leave Me” from Rent or Kanye West’s “Stronger.”)
Another element (which is a mild spoiler): What AMELIA is after in the movie is a motherboard of sorts, with emphasis on “mother” — as in, “She is mutha!”
“It’s not a full coincidence,” Williams comments on that connection. “We were aware of that terminology, but it was also a happy coincidence, honestly. Parenting is one of two deep themes of this movie. It’s about AI regulation and reform and usage and parenthood. That kind of Peter Pan quality of looking for a mother is how Gerard was finding it easiest to relate.”
M3GAN 2.0 is in theaters Friday, June 27.