M3GAN

Verbal Diorama · Apr 30, 2026 · 41m · transcript

The final episode of AIpril, M3GAN arrived in January 2023 as a modest Blumhouse horror release, and promptly became one of the most talked-about horror comedies of the year. On a budget of $12 million, it grossed over $180 million worldwide, spawned a franchise, and put a ten-second hallway dance sequence into the permanent vocabulary of internet culture.

Director Gerard Johnstone insisted from the outset on a practical-effects-first approach, and supervising puppeteer Adrien Morot built a suite of six or seven animatronic puppets capable of different ranges of movement — some with…