After M3GAN 2.0’s failure at the box office, Universal has decided to ship SOULM8TE, the franchise’s new spin-off film, which was meant to release on January 2, directly to digital and VOD platforms on August 1.
SOULM8TE has had an interesting journey so far. After its theatrical release date was pushed back, Universal shopped the film to other distributors before ultimately deciding to keep it and release it digitally. Clearly, everyone passed on it, and based on the first trailer, it’s easy to see why. It looks like the exact repeat of every horror film based around AI and android dolls in the last few years.
Worst of all, SOULM8TE isn’t directly connected to M3GAN at all. It’s an entirely new doll, and there’s no Gemma or Cady appearances either. The only thing that actually links this film to the original films is the branding and the same production team at Blumhouse and Atomic Monster. In other words, it’s just another killer AI concept that didn’t necessarily have to be tied to this universe at all.
The original M3GAN was a huge success in 2023, dancing its way up the box office charts with $180 million worldwide from a budget of $12 million. 2025’s M3GAN 2.0, however, didn’t have the same luck. It had a much bigger budget but only pulled in $39.1 million globally. Blumhouse founder Jason Blum realized that they dropped the ball on M3GAN 2.0 by focusing more on the film’s comedy action aspects rather than it’s horror elements like the first film. “We all thought Megan was like Superman,” he admitted in a December 2025 interview, reflecting on how the studio kept reshaping the character without checking if audiences still wanted her that way.
Our own review called M3GAN 2.0 a fun but shallow sequel, one that multiplies the mayhem while ditching the sharp commentary that made the first film work. Read our full breakdown of what went right and wrong with the sequel.
SOULM8TE, however, takes the franchise somewhere even stranger. Directed by Kate Dolan, who previously made You Are Not My Mother, the film follows a grieving engineer testing an experimental android for a tech company. He tries to program her into a fully sentient soulmate, and she develops needs of her own, kicking off a violent, methodically staged killing spree. When will these people ever learn?
Lily Sullivan, David Rysdahl, Claudia Doumit and Arty Froushan lead the cast, working from a story credited to James Wan, Ingrid Bisu and Rafael Jordan.
Dolan pitched the film as more than a genre exercise. “SOULM8TE is a movie about that vicious cycle,” she said, describing how the story examines loneliness, obsession, and the tools people use to fill the gap left by real connection.
Killer dolls and companion androids keep coming back because the trope never really gets old, it just gets remixed… over and over again. 2024’s Abigail, however, took M3GAN‘s dancing-doll scares and handed them to a ballerina vampire – which was probably the most interesting remix of the lot. But the idea stretches back years. Remember Small Wonder‘s Vicki, who was doing the uncanny domestic-android thing on television back in 1985?
So, no, SOULM8TE doesn’t look incredibly original. And that’s probably why it won’t be getting a marquee or a popcorn bucket anytime soon. Instead, it gets a digital release on August 1 through Universal Pictures Home Entertainment. But given how the success of M3GAN surprised everyone back in 2023, don’t write off this franchise or its spin-offs just yet.
