Meta's 'M3GAN' chatbot is a nightmare for moviegoers

Going to the movies these day is a crapshoot. People might scroll on their phones or record the screen the whole time. Audiences may lose their damn minds over "chicken jockey." And thanks to a new announcement from Meta and Blumhouse, the production company behind horror films like M3GAN and The Woman in the Yard, the moviegoing experience might be about to get a whole lot worse.

On April 9, Blumhouse revealed it would be re-releasing three of its biggest hits — Annabelle, Ma, and M3GAN — for its Halfway to Halloween festival, part of the company's 15-year anniversary celebration.

For the April 30 M3GAN re-release, Blumhouse teamed up with Meta for the first use of Meta's Movie Mate, a chatbot audiences can activate by messaging the M3GAN Instagram account. In turn, the chatbot will give audiences real-time trivia, behind-the-scenes facts, and exclusive content. The whole thing is intended to promote M3GAN 2.0 and elevate the so-called "second-screen experience," but really, it feels more like a free pass for people to use their phones in the movie theater.

Even without the irony of creating an AI chatbot tied to a movie about a killer AI doll, Movie Mate is a horrendous ploy that will ruin the theatrical experience, which is all about communally absorbing a movie to its fullest extent. And I don't care if the Movie Mate experience is limited to specific screenings — its existence encourages people who use it to believe this behavior is okay in other screenings. No one deserves to have a movie be ruined by the bright phone light of their seatmate looking up who's in the film. That's what the credits (and frantic post-movie googling) are for! Otherwise, the second-screen experience should just stay where it belongs: at home.