M3GAN Creators Knew Killer Doll Dance Would Go Viral & Even Made Memes

The filmmakers behind Blumhouse’s killer AI doll film M3GAN revealed that they planned for the trailer’s iconic dance moment to go viral. The film, which stars Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Ronny Chieng, and Brian Jordan Alvarez, features a sequence where the titular doll dances in a hallway while brandishing a sharp implement, which quickly became the subject of memes across social media platforms. The scene became so widespread that the M3GAN premiere featured a troupe of dancers performing in costume as the character.

As part of their 2023 preview, Entertainment Weekly sat down with the creators behind M3GAN, who revealed that while the dance scene was a spur-of-the-moment decision to include, they planned for it to go viral. Director Gerard Johnstone revealed that the dance sequence was born from “one of those crazy, sleep-deprived, 3 a.m. thoughts,” and that everybody enthusiastically agreed that it should be a part of the film. Williams, who is both the star and an executive producer, revealed that they were prepared with internal “memes to distribute,” but they didn’t need to when the sequence took off on its own. Read their full quote below:

Gerard Johnstone: It was one of those crazy, sleep-deprived, 3 a.m. thoughts. Wouldn’t it kind of be funny if the soundtrack suddenly became real and M3GAN ended up busting a move to whatever music was playing. It was just something that everyone embraced and loved.

Allison Williams: We had internally come up with memes to distribute, but we didn’t end up needing to deploy them, because people started making their own. You can’t even dream that big when you’re doing something like this. That was just such an exciting day. It was proof of concept.

Related: Ronny Chieng’s Film & TV Roles: Where You Know Young Rock’s Greg Yao

Blumhouse Has a History of Embracing Movie Memes

It’s not entirely shocking to learn that a movie studio was planning for a moment from their advertising campaign, especially one as bold and bizarre as that first M3GAN trailer, to go viral. However, the surprise here is that their plan worked. It is notoriously difficult to predict exactly what pop culture moments will go viral on social media, as the fickle whims of the Internet tend to leave publicity-engineered memes swinging in the wind without much widespread enthusiasm.

However, Blumhouse has had success in the past with launching and propagating memes based around their movies. Sometimes, this merely involves finding ways to fold their projects into memes that already exist, including a post several years ago where they transformed the “they did surgery on a grape” meme into a reference to their 2018 techno-thriller Upgrade. On the other hand, they have also had huge success with meme campaigns specifically centered on one of their titles, as evidenced by the cavalcade of memes that circulated several years ago involving Photoshopping the title character from their 2019 Octavia Spencer film Ma into the posters of various films, including turning Hugh Jackman as P.T. Barnum into the character for The Greatest ShowMA.

However, it remains to be seen if this viral moment will translate into box office success for M3GAN. While Ma was a success in the box office, the meme campaign took off long after its theatrical run, so there is no way it could have influenced ticket sales. As Sony recently learned with the viral memes about Morbius, joking about a film online doesn’t always translate into paying to see it, so only time will tell when the film debuts in the New Year.

More: Why Chucky Is A Better Killer As A DollSource: EW