The first M3GAN (which I refuse to pronounce any way but “muh-THREE-gan”) came out in January 2023 and made an unfathomable amount of money. A kind of “what if the Terminator but a cute girl doll” story, the movie surprised everyone with huge box office after some very clever marketing and uncanny valley GIFs. Blumhouse and Atomic Monster had a bonafide hit on their hands. So what to do next? A franchise! Now, in fairness, the sequel M3GAN 2.0 earlier this year was decidedly not a hit, but the “erotic thriller-inspired spinoff” SOULM8TE could still do well, right?
Well, it may. Just not any time soon. The movie had yet to release any kind of trailer, but was on Universal’s release slate for January 2026. That’s right, in a few weeks. Now, Deadline is reporting that the movie is off the calendar entirely. Blumhouse and Atomic Monster will shop the movie around to other distributors.
In SOULM8TE, a man acquires an Artificially Intelligent android to cope with the loss of his recently deceased wife. In an attempt to create a truly sentient partner, he inadvertently turns a harmless lovebot into a deadly soulmate. Now, partially this sounds like the more male-centric version of that movie Companion. In other words, the more on-the-nose and less exciting version.
Paramount prompted the move, in part, by placing its January horror offering, Primate, on the same January 9, 2026 spot. Two major studios wouldn’t each put out a horror movie on the same day. But the question then becomes why Universal would drop their movie fully. Jason Blum and James Wan have name recognition in the genre, even if director Kate Dolan does not. The film stars Claudia Doumit (The Boys), Lily Sullivan (Evil Dead Rise) and David Rysdahl (Alien: Earth).
If you were to ask me, which no one has, I think the biggest problem is that the title doesn’t work. If you want it to be a “Soulmate” but with a number, it needs to be “Soulm8.” See: Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8er Boi.” As written, we should pronounce it “Soulm-ATE-tea” or maybe Soul Matie, like if it were a pirate. Maybe it’s about a pirate! We literally don’t know, we don’t have a trailer.
SOULM8TE will come out whenever the fuck.
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.