I’m 33 years old and I’m afraid of texting M3gan, the menacing robot child who stole our hearts and the box office in January 2023. M3gan can dance, play, and kill, and she’ll return in M3gan 2.0 in June. But before all that, Blumhouse hopes to rekindle interest in the series by rereleasing the first film in theaters with a new feature that encourages viewers to text with M3gan. I don’t want to text with M3gan; I want to watch M3gan! The M3gan rerelease coincides with the production company’s “Halfway to Halloween” promotional event, kind of a “Christmas in July” type of thing but for the month of April. According to a press release received by Variety, Blumhouse will also bring back Annabelle and Ma to round out the trifecta of villainous chicas.
The texting comes from Blumhouse’s new partnership with Meta (ominous!) to launch the latter company’s Movie Mate technology that will allow viewers to “second screen during the film to access exclusive content, trivia and behind-the-scenes info in real-time.” In order to access that second-screen interface, audiences will have to DM the @m3gan Instagram account to kick things off. During the M3gan screening, users will be able to (1) chat with the M3gan Instagram and (2) access “sneak peeks, exclusive recorded messages from directors and talent from the films, and surprise special appearances in select markets,” to say nothing of (3) watching the movie M3gan, which people will have paid to see.
Let’s step back for a second and consider that texting a chatbot during a movie in order to get access to video sneak peeks during a movie is basically like watching YouTube while having the TV on in your home. Even if that didn’t seem overstimulating and bizarre, is M3gan really the best Blumhouse IP to text? It might seem like the obvious first choice — M3gan is technology, phone is technology; use phone to text with M3gan — but M3gan wasn’t “about” phones or interacting with M3gan so much as it was about the doll’s reign of terror. You know whose reign of terror had everything to do with texting?
Let moviegoers text with Ma! Ma texts! She sends videos! She menaces teens using a phone, unlike M3gan, who menaces them through the power of dance acrobatics. If Blumhouse wants people texting during a movie, it should at least have them text during a movie that’s at least a little about texting.
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And a production company shouldn’t be encouraging you to text during a film, even if there is a promise of more M3gan content.
