60 SECOND SCREENPLAY
TF SAVES YOU THE COST OF A MOVIE EVERY MONTH. THIS ISSUE: M3GAN…
FADE IN: INT: TOY LABORATORY
After her parents die in an everyday snowtruck collision, young VIOLET McGRAW is adopted by unreliable aunt ALLISON WILLIAMS, an inventor of cute toys/killer robots.
ALLISON WILLIAMS
Harrumph. Well, this is inconvenient. I’m busy trying to transition from making talking teddy bears to making creepy sentient dolls.
VIOLET McGRAW
Wow. You really don’t seem very upset that your sister has just died.
INT: ALLISON’S HOUSE
ALLISON WILLIAMS attempts to bond with VIOLET McGRAW by showing her a motion-capture robot that will definitely appear again later in the film.
VIOLET McGRAW
I wish I could have my own super-advanced, super-expensive tech doll so it could be my best friend. Please? Can I?
ALLISON WILLIAMS
Great idea! I’ll immediately have the technological breakthrough that’s been stumping me, just so you can have a toy to play with. ALLISON WILLIAMS manages to build life-sized tweenbot M3GAN and brings her home, where she teaches VIOLET McGRAW how to use a coaster and flush a toilet. Normal friend stuff. Suddenly, M3GAN murders the neighbour’s dog.
M3GAN
That will teach you to bite my friend/owner/ paired human whom I must protect beyond all reasonable robotics laws.
INT: TOY LABORATORY
VIOLET McGRAW gets upset as she remembers that her mum died extremely recently. M3GAN comforts her by harvesting her data.
IMPORTANT COMPANY BOSS
Your expensive creepy doll-droid seems to work reasonably well! You deserve a raise!
ALLISON WILLIAMS
Thank you! I’m so pleased! Everything’s going so well right now. M3GAN brutally murders a young boy. The police arrive on the scene immediately.
ALLISON WILLIAMS
Oh, this other child? Don’t worry, she’s just my niece’s friend. Just a regular human friend with a perfectly normal uncanny-valley face.
POLICEMAN
Actually I’m just here about a missing dog?
INT: ALLISON’S HOUSE
While searching for her dog, the neighbour encounters M3GAN, who promptly pressurewashes and nail-guns her to death. The police immediately return.
ALLISON WILLIAMS
Oh no, a young boy was killed AND our neighbour’s dog is missing? Strange, certainly, but is there any reason to think of it as suspicious?
POLICEMAN
Well, we found the boy’s severed ear, so… ALLISON WILLIAMS confronts M3GAN for a while until she eventually remembers her ‘off’ switch and just flicks that. She takes her back to the lab to carry out some tests.
ALLISON WILLIAMS
Hmm, there’s an error message saying that all of her files are now corrupt, but it’s probably nothing.
INT: M3GAN LAUNCH PARTY
ALLISON WILLIAMS and VIOLET McGRAW are at the huge M3GAN launch event even though there’s currently only one M3GAN.
ALLISON WILLIAMS
Despite spending years developing this technology, I’ve realised I’ve been a rubbish guardian to you, so let’s just go home.
VIOLET McGRAW
Are you sure? It is literally just one more night and we’re already here? OK, fine. They leave the party just as M3GAN kills everyone in sight while performing a TikTok dance designed purely for viral movie marketing.
M3GAN
The meme value of this scene alone has pretty much guaranteed me a sequel.
INT: ALLISON’S HOUSE
M3GAN tries to kill ALLISON WILLIAMS. VIOLET McGRAW interrupts and predictably uses the motion-capture robot from earlier to fight her.
M3GAN
I’ll take care of you even if I have to kill you to do it! They all fight for a really long time. M3GAN gets completely dismantled. She continues to fight for another really long time. Eventually she gets stabbed in the face and powers down.
ALLISON WILLIAMS
Thank God that’s over with! I really need to be more careful with AI tech. In fact… Alexa? Remind me to not be so reliant on technology in the future!
ALEXA
I have set a reminder for you. Mwa-ha-ha-ha…
FIN
NEXT ISSUE: PLANE