In April of 2025, Blumhouse Productions spent some time in the spotlight during the Universal panel at the CinemaCon event in Las Vegas, and JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray was there to witness an early preview of SOULM8TE, which is “a new movie in the M3GAN universe” that was set to reach theatres on January 2, 2026… but then, M3GAN 2.0 underperformed and SOULM8TE was dropped from the release calendar. Now, Universal has announced that they’re giving the film a straight-to-digital release on August 1st. Now that we have a release date, a trailer has also been unveiled, and you can check it out in the embed above.
The M3GAN movies and SOULM8TE come from the recently merged companies Atomic Monster (headed up by James Wan) and Blumhouse Productions (headed up by Jason Blum). James Wan, his wife Ingrid Bisu, and Rafael Jordan (Salvage Marines) crafted the story for this one, with Jordan writing the first draft of the screenplay. Kate Dolan (You Are Not My Mother) directed the film and did her own rewrite of the script.
SOULM8TE will show us what happens when 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.
The film stars Evil Dead Rise actress Lily Sullivan, Claudia Doumit of The Boys, Arty Froushan of Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, and David Rysdahl, whose credits include Fargo season 5, The Family, No Exit, Black Mirror, Oppenheimer, and Booger.
James Wan and Jason Blum are producing SOULM8TE, while Michael Clear and Judson Scott of Atomic Monster serve as executive producers with with Ingrid Bisu and M3GAN cast member Allison Williams. Alayna Glasthal is the executive leading the project for Atomic Monster.
Bumbray had this to say about the CinemaCon preview: “Seems similar to Companion. Centers on a sexbot that becomes so obsessed with her “owner” that she kills anyone close to him and goes on a murder spree. Looks more violent (and kinkier) than M3GAN but has the same humor. When a woman she’s about to kill says ‘Women aren’t supposed to be pitted against each other,’ she answers, ‘Don’t start that girl power shit with me.’”
The film has been described as “Fatal Attraction with robots.”
The Motion Picture Association ratings board gave SOULM8TE an R rating for strong violence, gore, sexual content, graphic nudity, and language. This sets it apart from both of the M3GAN movies in a major way, because those were PG-13.
The release date announcement was accompanied by the following statement from Dolan: “When Blumhouse Atomic Monster first approached me about an erotic thriller set in the M3GAN-verse, I thought, are you insane? But something drew me in. We exist in a bizarre time where companies sell us ‘connection’ through apps, algorithms, and AI. Yet those are the same forces pulling us apart. The lonelier we get, the more dependent we become on the tools doing the pulling. SOULM8TE is a movie about that vicious cycle. It is a satirical, unhinged movie that explores desire, obsession, autonomy and control. It’s a movie that knows how ridiculous it is, and I’d argue it’s best watched the way you’d watch Basic Instinct or Showgirls now, with friends, a drink in hand, and zero shame about shouting at the screen.“
Are you interested in SOULM8TE? Take a look at the trailer, then let us know by leaving a comment below.