Meet Akela Cooper, Screenwriter to Universal’s Horror Hit Film, M3GAN
Among the films hitting this week is the Univeral/ Blumhouse horror film, M3GAN, which was written by Akela Cooper. The film is expected to gross over #25M in its opening week.
Cooper was a staff writer for Grimm for two seasons and went on to be a writer and co-producer for The 100, American Horror Story, Luke Cage, Jupiter's Legacy, Witches of East End, and Chambers. (Via Wiki)
From the press notes - When it came to the ideal screenwriter to flesh out this premise for M3GAN, the producers turned to storyteller Akela Cooper, who has written everything from episodes of Marvel’s Luke Cage to American Horror Story and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Wan knew that he needed a strong female perspective on the story and Cooper was the perfect fit. “What I’ve learned from Annabelle is how beloved she is by girls,” Wan says. “We knew that this part of the horror audience is very important to us, so we needed to have a feminine energy and perspective with M3GAN. Akela’s so smart, savvy and good at structure; she knew exactly the movie that I wanted to make. She is not afraid to push things that others might deem ridiculous or over-the-top. She understands that you must lean into concepts that might be a bit more far-fetched to stand out from the crop of recent horror films.”
M3GAN would be Cooper’s first screenplay for Wan’s Atomic Monster, but she would go on to write 2021’s Malignant for Wan as well as next year’s The Nun 2. That first meeting with Atomic Monster was memorable. “We were all just horror fans,” Cooper says. “They said, ‘Do you want to take a crack at this idea?’ and they liked my take. That got me in the door, and that led us to this fruitful relationship.” As a Black woman writing horror, Cooper is also opening doors of her own. “A few years ago, I was on a horror panel at the Austin Film Festival,” Cooper says “There were several Black women in the front row. I was introduced as the writer of Malignant and Nun 2. Afterward, they came up and said, ‘We didn’t know Black women could write horror.’ I told them, ‘We can write anything.’”
M3GAN is directed by Kiwi filmmaker Gerard Johnstone and stars Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Ronny Chieng, Brian Jordan Alvarez, Jen Van Epps, Lori Dungey, Stephane Garneau-Monten, plus Jenna Davis as the voice of M3GAN.
"She's more than just a toy. She's part of the family." M3GAN is a marvel of artificial intelligence, a life-like doll programmed to be a child’s greatest companion and a parent’s greatest ally. Designed by brilliant toy-company roboticist Gemma (Allison Williams), M3GAN can listen and watch & learn as she becomes friend & teacher, playmate & protector, for the child she is bonded to. When Gemma suddenly becomes the caretaker of her orphaned 8-year-old niece, Cady (Violet McGraw), Gemma's unsure and unprepared to be a parent. Under intense pressure at work, Gemma decides to pair her M3GAN prototype with Cady in an attempt to resolve both problems—a decision that will have unimaginable consequences.
