M3GAN is slaying at the box office and there are already plans for a sequel. Screenwriter Akela Cooper opened up about writing the script for the horror film and revealed that it was originally “gorier” and an unrated version is possibly in development.
“No shade to Universal, love them, and I understand that once the trailer went viral, teenagers got involved and you want them to be able to see it. There should be an unrated version at some point,” she said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “I heard it is on the books. But yes, it was way gorier. Her body count in the script was higher than in the movie.”
Cooper, who also wrote Malignant, said that M3GAN’s body count wasn’t a “scale massacre” like in the former movie “but she did kill a bunch more people, including a couple of characters whom James [Wan] was like, ‘I like what you did with those people, but I want them to live.’ I was merciless, but again, that is me. My humor is extremely dark.”
Although M3GAN is in the horror genre, it has some funny elements throughout. Cooper said that it’s “exciting” to see the shift from studio executives that were swaying away from gory films.
“An exec who read one of my specs and really liked it said, ‘It’s gory and no one’s doing gore right now. We have to wait for a horror movie that has gore to come out and be a hit, and then the market will shift.’ I was sitting there, like, ‘OK … we could lead that charge,’” she said. “Now I’m [hearing], ‘There’s gore, and it’s not a problem.’ I’m happy that I could have a hand in bringing back fun horror that doesn’t take itself so seriously. I’m reading about more horror movies that are wild, out-there ideas coming out or being bought. And some of them are original, which is good! I’m happy that I could steer that ship so that studio execs can be like, ‘Oh! There might actually be money in them thar hills.’”
M3GAN has also been compared to Chucky from Child’s Play and Cooper talked about how she was able to differentiate them.
“Chucky is a doll; this is an AI companion. To avoid that obstacle, she needs to be the size of whatever child she is befriending,” she explained. “Initially Cady was 6 or 7 and now she’s 8 in the movie. [So M3GAN] is taller and she’s capable of walking around, capable of movement, which makes her different immediately from Annabelle and Chucky. You want that uncanniness, because that is disturbing to people.”
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