Back in October 2022, the Internet went mad for M3GAN after its dancing scene went viral, but if director Gerard Johnstone had his way, it wouldn't have been included in the first trailer.
The dancing scene was actually Johnstone's idea, albeit one he thought "someone would probably talk [him] down from the ledge" about before shooting. However, the positive first feedback from Universal gave him a sense that he was onto a winner.
As a result, Johnstone was keen that the dancing scene, which sees M3GAN track down a victim in flamboyant fashion, was left out of the marketing to keep it a secret.
"I was really worried when I saw the trailer and saw how much dancing it was, I was like, 'Oh my god, you're giving it away and you've got to cut'. I did want it to be a surprise. I wanted it to be a really fun surprise," he told Digital Spy.
"Luckily, we've had two screenings and I've been able to sit in a room and see people genuinely react for the first time not knowing what they're going to see. So I was a little bit bummed out, but you've got to market the movie, and it was fun to see that it was able to be recut and embraced."
He continued: "In terms of the trailer and things like that, I really just have to trust Universal. When you're making the movie, it's exhausting being over every single decision. So it's quite nice [to] just sit back and say, 'OK well, you guys do what you can'.
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"I know that there's more to the movie that people haven't seen yet, so I feel OK about it."
It helps that the dancing scene instantly made M3GAN a must-see for a lot of movie fans, and its near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score suggests that the sci-fi horror movie will be worth the wait.
Lead star Allison Williams was never in doubt that people would love the titular android — and as an executive producer on the movie, she was especially keen that people 'got' what the creative team was going for.
"We think she's iconic. We think she's a star, she's gorgeous. She's funny. The biggest challenge — and like our mission with the trailer — with all the marketing was just to make sure people like understood who she is," she told Digital Spy.
"The minute the trailer came out and we started seeing the memes on social media, we were like, 'Oh, they get her, like, we did it'. They understand who she is, and they are running with it."
Williams added: "Somehow it was as if she had just already been in the culture, even though no one knew it was coming. It was like you dream of something like that, where it just takes Twitter and TikTok by storm in the way that it did.
"I hope people are really excited to go see it because seeing it all — all those little moments in the trailer that got such a big reaction, seeing it in context is even better."
M3GAN is out now in US cinemas and is released in UK cinemas on January 13.
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
