MEGAN immensely impacted pop culture, so much so that it affected other AI-centric films—such as S.K. Dale's upcoming Subservience, starring Megan Fox.
Universal's 2023 hit horror film MEGAN got the world's attention and birthed countless memes. It also ensured the world was always thinking about AI, androids, and how they fit into the world.
Fast forward to 2024, and S.K. Dale is ready to deliver his unique take on the genre.
How Subservience Explores Intimacy & MEGAN's Impact
In an exclusive interview with The Direct's Russ Milheim, Subservience director S.K. Dale revealed that they cut a scene out of the film due to the hit horror film MEGAN.
First, he pointed out how they "actually finished production" by the time MEGAN released:
"We had actually finished production when that movie came out. I don't think I'd seen the trailer or anything for it. Maybe I'd seen the trailer while we were shooting, which was nerve-wracking, because, of like the title 'MEGAN,' was kind of like, 'Oh no,'..."
Dale elaborated that he "steered clear from it" as he did not want to be "influenced in any way by it:"
"But I actually steered cleared from it, while we were shooting, and everything like that. I didn't want to kind of be influenced in any way by it. I wanted to just kind of focus on the script that we had and the story we were telling. And then when we were in post-production, I did watch it, and I just wanted to make sure there were certain things that we were kind of steering clear of."
The director said that they ended up "[taking] out one particular scene" from Subservience while editing due to its similarity to a sequence in MEGAN:
"And in fact, I took out one particular scene because I just thought, 'Oh, that was too similar to that. So let's cut it out.' But the good thing is, we were kind of playing in this more adult-driven, focused box and looking at these parents within this fractured relationship as things were kind of unfolding, which felt like a unique story we were telling."
As for what Dale wanted to explore the most with this story of AI and androids, he explained how he wanted to tell the narrative "through the lens of a small intimate family:"
"With a lot of sci-fi and android and robot movies, it is large [in] scope. It is looking at the world. And I really wanted to look at it through the lens of a small, intimate family and keep the story as intimate as possible, as you're getting these fragments of things happening around them. Whether it's his work life, things at the bar, friends, or even the hospital. Like certain things that we just get a glimpse into and see in the sci-fi world... We couldn't pull off the scope of 'I, Robot.' So, let's focus on the family, let's focus on those characters, and keep it as intimate as possible."
One particular arena that Subservience tackles that many films don't is how an android helper might affect the bedroom and the topics of sex and intimacy.
In the movie, Michele Morrone's Nick unexpectedly struggles when Megan Fox's Alice wants to make him happy.
"I can see why other films probably avoid it," Dale noted, adding that "it created more of a challenge for Megan's performance:"
"I can see why other films probably avoid it because it is kind of scary when you come into it where you're like, if this performance is too robotic and all that, is it going to feel comical when you get to this sequence? So, to me, it created more of a challenge for Megan's performance, making sure that it had that right balance of robotic but human emotions to get to that point. I think we are heading in this direction to some degree... the way technology has developed, our sex lives have completely changed. And you know the way we communicate with people across the world... it does affect our lives in so many ways."
"But I was excited to explore that aspect of it," the filmmaker confirmed, sharing how he did plenty of research ahead of time:
"But I was excited to explore that aspect of it. When we were in prep, I was watching a lot of documentaries and finding anything I could find on this kind of element and where we were heading. And there are people out there that only have relationships with, whether it's a doll or a robotic doll and stuff like that. It's actually quite interesting to see where we are already."
On why Megan Fox was the perfect choice to play Alice, Dale was happy to explain why she was the best option:
"I think having worked with Megan once before, and then when this project was coming up, I definitely thought that we could, knowing her strengths and everything like that, I thought, 'Okay, this is a role that she could nail.' It also had similarities to 'Jennifer's Body,' which I liked.
Fox helped flesh out how Alice would be portrayed, with Dale revealing that she offered the idea that "her movements [would be] like a ballerina:"
"When she got to set... we were playing with this idea... [which] was Megan's idea, and I loved it, was this idea of her movements being like a ballerina. They've got to be slow but very precise, and the posture always has to be up, and everything like that. So we started to lean into it from then on and play that element into it. And I think it created a slight sense of dread, or it just kind of always reminded us she's not human."
To finish the conversation off, director S. K. Dale opened up about what the most complex challenge of his time on Subservience was, which was the "enormous pressure to get everything you want to shoot" within the allotted production schedule:
"When you're being a director on set, you are kind of under this enormous pressure to get everything you want to shoot, and particularly between this one and my last film, we had a lot more scenes, a lot more characters, a lot more action, and trying to fit that within the shooting days is the biggest challenge ever. So you are kind of always trying to evolve the story in ways that you can make your shooting days, but not lose, you know, a scene or a creative element that you really love. So I think just slowly kind of learning that."
Subservience releases digitally and on VOD on Friday, September 13.
