M3GAN | Meta set to ruin cinema with an AI chatbot phone app

by Dan Cooper |
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A one-off screening in the US will encourage cinemagoers to interact with a M3GAN AI chatbot via their phones.

Writing the news for this website is frankly, becoming an increasingly surreal experience with each passing day. If it’s not audiences behaving outrageously because a baby zombie rides a chicken, it’s that US theatrical chains are endangering their own business models by allowing Meta – a company famed for definitely not being evil – into their cinemas to do that disruption thing that the company loves to do.

The full story, then: in the US, cinemas are staging a one night only screening of Blumhouse’s killer doll movie, M3GAN, that will encourage patrons to use their phones to interact with an AI-powered chatbot version of the doll throughout the course of the film. While advertised as a one-off, the technology powering the experience has been created by Meta – likely for the sole purpose of infiltrating one space the company has yet to successfully ‘disrupt’.

Variety states that this screening will be ‘unique’ in that it will allow fans to communicate with the killer doll herself via a M3GAN chatbot that audiences are free to communicate with during the screenings. Meta look to be making some kind of push in this space, given that the company is launching its Movie Mate technology with the screening.

Read more: M3GAN review | Old ideas done better than ever

The report also states that ‘during the film, moviegoers can use a second screen to access exclusive content, trivia, and behind-the-scenes information in real-time as the movie plays.’ The feature will only be available to patrons inside the cinema.

We suspect that cinema operators will be looking at this one carefully. Cineworld’s decision here in the UK to silo all of the poor Minecraft behaviour into select screenings is another indicator that cinema chains are increasingly open to new modes of viewing. There also continues to be speculation that screenings that allow phone use could be either the answer to poor behaviour in cinemas (spoiler: it will only make things worse) and could be a regular option in the future. Should this chatbot experience prove to be a hit with younger audiences, so could AI chatbot screenings.

Meanwhile, Blumhouse has killer doll sequel M3GAN 2.0 programmed and ready for cinemas on the 27th June. Whether it too will get its own mobile phone application remains to be seen.

We’ll bring you more on this one as we hear it.

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