M3GAN introduced everyone's new favorite killer doll. Gemma, a brilliant toy engineer, unexpectedly becomes the guardian of her recently orphaned niece. Unsure of how to care for Cady, Gemma decides to use her recently finished android prototype M3GAN, who becomes Cady's closest confidant and protector. While this helps Gemma's career and seems to help Cady, M3GAN's actions to protect Cady soon become deadly.

M3GAN is produced by horror powerhouses James Wan and Jason Blum. M3GAN is directed by Gerard Johnstone with a screenplay by Akela Cooper based on a story by Cooper and Wan. The horror movie stars Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Ronny Chieng, Amie Donald, and Jenna Davis.

Related: M3GAN Gets Way Bloodier & More Vengeful In Unrated Version Clips

Screen Rant spoke with Gerard Johnstone about M3GAN ahead of the hit horror movie's home release, which includes a longer and gorier edition. Johnstone discussed the difference between the PG-13 version and the unrated version of M3GAN as well as the special features on the M3GAN home release. He also revealed details about his scrapped Justice League Dark script, including plot details and how James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy inspired him.

Gerard Johnstone on M3GAN

M3GAN holding paper cutter knife

Screen Rant: I loved M3GAN! It's terrifying, and it's hilarious all at the same time. Can you talk to me about the difference between the PG-13 version and the unrated version?

Gerard Johnstone: I mean, the thing I miss the most is Ronny Chieng unchained, the CEO of this tool company swearing his mouth off every third word. That's the biggest difference. It's like you really get to see Ronny's true performance in the movie. And then on the horror side of things, if you felt like we were holding back on some things, we don't hold back in this version, and we totally go there. It's up to you to decide which is the better way to go.

Unrated, unrated, Ronny is brilliant. He's one of my favorite comedians. His timing is great. His chemistry with Allison is great. Can you talk about building the tension and balancing the different types of horror in M3GAN?

Gerard Johnstone: Well, the funny thing is that's part of the PG-13 equation, because of the tight shooting schedule. The thing about this movie is, it's a typical kind of Blumhouse film model where it's 30 days. Maybe we've got a couple of extra days, but really it's 30 days, and you're dealing with an animatronic puppet and kids and animals. Kids' hours; you get two hours less in your shooting day, and those last two hours is where everything happens and you're just cramming to get it all done. It was brutal.

I was really disappointed by some of those sequences. So, when we had to go PG 13, we had to re-shoot this scene where Stefan's character gets splattered with blood. I was like, "Well, if we re-shoot that, can I re-shoot a couple of other things? Can I re-shoot Celia coming to the shed, and can she come through a rusty own gate, and can there be leaves blowing?" And so it's like we got to do all this stuff that kind of made those other sequences just a little bit more tense, so I was really happy about that.

m3gan titanium singing perfect

That's incredible. Audiences love M3GAN. I think it has a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. Why do you think audiences connected so effectively to M3GAN?

Gerard Johnstone: I think a large part of it has to do with her. Just like she's so uncanny, but in a way that's not [repulsive]. The whole definition of Uncanny Valley is it's kind of repulsive, but she's the opposite. She's intriguing and enchanting, and I think people just love her, and she's so fun. And that was really my job when I got this movie, just to make her as fun as I could. I just had so much fun writing dialogue for her, and just thinking of all the different things that she could do, and it's just so gratifying to see that audiences felt the same way.

It's not a perfect movie by any means, so I'm sure a lot of writing professors could rip it to pieces and talk about all the things that we didn't do, but I just think it's a really charming, bonkers movie that is anchored by this incredible performance that's somehow manufactured by about 10 different people, from myself to Moreau who made her and did all the animatronics, to the puppeteer turning her head at just the right moments, to Amy who inhabited her when she's walking and doing all that physical stuff, to Jenna Davis, who brings that voice to life in the most extraordinary way possible.

Absolutely. One thing I love about home entertainment releases is that you can go to film school with some of these special features. Can you talk to me about some of the special features on the home release?

Gerard Johnstone: Yeah, I mean there's three features, and they just give you a really good insight into the filmmaking process, and they make it look like I really knew what I was doing, and that's the most impressive part to me. It's like, "Wow, that guy really knows. It looks like he knows what he is doing." Because it didn't feel that way some of the time.

Before we made the movie, I was almost threatened. "Don't talk about how we made the doll.", and "Don't talk about Amy," and "Don't talk about all this amazing stuff." You just get to see all that, and how we did it, and some of the challenges we went through.

m3gan titanium

I don't think there's one horror movie that I had more fun watching. M3GAN really taps into the comedy. How do you approach the more comedic versus more horrific scenes when filming?

Gerard Johnstone: I think they're part of the same equation in some way. Horror's timing. It's like, when you construct a skier, it's like you've got to, and I say this, my wife hates horror movies, and so the trick I say to her is, just put your fingers in your ears. And because, the way time a scare is you show two frames of the scare, and then you come at them with the whole fucking orchestra, and the stab, and so that's the same way you approach a joke.

It's like when I'm writing M3GAN's dialogue or Alison's dialogue, it's just trying to figure out that timing. And speaking of Alison, she's great as well. She just kind of knows how to play things. She's just got such a wonderful dry sense of humor that just lends itself to that part. So it was just, it doesn't always work. But my approach to comedy and horror is just treading both the genres with equal kind of seriousness and weight. And I love both genres equally.

And I can watch a horror movie that's scary as fuck and has no laughs. And in same ways, I just love watching comedy as well. So I just treat them both kind of straight and I think the music really helps as well. Like, Anthony's job, because Anthony was worried. It's like, "Do I have to score the jokes?" I was like, "No, no, no, no. You are the glue that holds the tone together. So you just play it straight the whole time.", and somehow that kind of all makes it work.

It's easy to draw comparisons to Chucky and the Terminator, or at least draw inspiration from the two. Who do you think would win in a fight? M3GAN, Chucky, or the Terminator?

Gerard Johnstone: Well, M3GAN. I don't know why. I just know she'd find a way because she's the most recent version. So she'd have all the most upgrades and she's just really smart. I think M3GAN's an icon and I just think I would love to see her pop up. People have said, do you want to see her in the next Chucky or is Chucky going to come into M3GAN? I'm just put M3GAN in any movie and see what happens. She's a ton of fun.

The character of M3GAN is so charismatic. You set up a great tease at the end for a sequel. Can you talk about what you'd like to explore next with Gemma, and M3GAN, and those characters?

Gerard Johnstone: Well, I think when you make a movie, it doesn't matter if it's a sequel or whatever, it's like, "Does this have a reason for being?" "Does this have something to say?" And you can't just do it just to make more money, right? It's not just that it's always the dropping off point, it's there has to be a reason for it. And so, certainly my conversations with the producers is largely stems from "What is this about?" And if the first movie was about parenting in the 21st century, how do we evolve that conversation? And there is just so much.

The great thing about making a film with AI themes is that they keep growing and evolving, and they keep impacting society in unexpected and absurd ways. So that's really how I think we stay fresh and relevant, but at the same time understanding what really worked about the first movie. And is that ultimately it was really fun, just the fun, entertaining, absurd ride.

DC's Swamp-Thing and The Justice League Dark

Switching gears for a second, I'm a huge DC fan. You were once writing Justice League Dark. Now that James Gunn has taken over, is that project still on the table, and what does Justice League Dark look like?

Gerard Johnstone: The status is mainly that IMDB just hasn't updated that page yet. I was on Justice League Dark. I'm a big fan of James, and while I was working on Justice League Dark, I was watching Guardians of the Galaxy a lot. Because tonally, it was really similar to what I wanted to do, but also it was a movie that introduced a bunch of new characters in a movie that's worked. I was really studying Guardians a lot while I was writing it to figure out, "Okay, what are the ways you do this, right?" Because the first Suicide Squad didn't work.

It's hard when the Marvel films had the luxury of having standalone movies; you couldn't wait for all these characters to get together. So Guardians is just an awesome example of how you do it properly. What happened with that one was, Geoff Johns [and] John Byrne were big fans of Housebound, my first movie, and that just got me the job. It was the easiest pitch ever. He was just like, "I've watched Housebound four times." And I was like, "Okay, I'm just going to sit here and say nothing." That got me the job. But, admittedly, I wasn't a huge comic book guy. My favorite DC character was Wonder Woman, to be perfectly honest.

I had to give myself an education on those comics. And so I did a massive deep dive on all the DC comics, and Constantine [and] all the Hellblazer. It's so funny because they just wanted a script really quickly, but I was like, "I'm just having too much fun reading these comics." I was getting into the Brujería; the weird little Patagonian cult. And I was like, "I want to do something with the Brujería. These guys are really strange, and weird, and they live in a cave in Patagonia, how cool is that?" I had taken on a script that was really fun, but I think no writer had really been able to invest the necessary time on it to just make it work.

Marvel at the time, were just killing it. All their movies were Pixar films in terms of how good the story was and just how perfect the script was. I just really wanted to get the script perfect, [but] about halfway through the process, Justice League came out. It was just a tough time for DC, I think. It was just like Justice League came out, didn't do what they wanted it to do. Suicide Squad didn't do what they wanted to do. And so I was just told that they don't want to spend money on another new movie with a bunch of characters no one's heard of, and I understand that. It was a shame.

But I really was just halfway through the script writing process with that one. But yeah, it was a fun pitch. So Deadman, Swamp Thing, Constantine, Zatanna. I felt like Zatanna was actually the main character, and there was a lot of the conversations and jostling I had with the guys, because they were like, "Constantine's the main character." I was like, "No, Constantine's kind of the coolest character. But Zatanna is really the main character." Because she's discovering her magical powers for the first time. But it was fun, man. The characters all went to hell to get Zatanna's dad.

I've got to read this script, Gerard.

Gerard Johnstone: Yeah, I gotta dig it up. But it was fun. I had blast writing it. But no, it's an unfinished work, for sure. I would love to meet James Gunn. I would love to sit down with James Gunn and talk about it, for sure.

About M3GAN

Megan looking sinisterly in M3GAN

M3GAN is a marvel of artificial intelligence, a lifelike doll that's programmed to be a child's greatest companion and a parent's greatest ally. Designed by Gemma, a brilliant roboticist, M3GAN can listen, watch and learn as it plays the role of friend and teacher, playmate and protector. When Gemma becomes the unexpected caretaker of her 8-year-old niece, she decides to give the girl an M3GAN prototype, a decision that leads to unimaginable consequences.

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Next: M3GAN Composer Reveals How The Killer Doll's Musical Moments Came To Be

M3GAN UNRAT3D VERSION, is available on Digital now and Blu-ray and DVD on March 21.