Sci-fi and horror have always gone hand in hand, and there’s no better example than the timeless rebellious android trope. From HAL-9000 to the Terminator, a machine attempting to replace humanity gets to the core of our fears about what we might do to ourselves with our own technology. In 2023, this idea was taken to unsettling heights with M3GAN, the campy horror thriller about a sassy babysitting robot that proved popular enough to kick off a minor dance craze.
M3GAN 2.0 is already slated for a 2025 release, but like any modern movie that makes enough money, the story is also getting a spinoff that transforms the film into a franchise.
Variety reports that Blumhouse Productions and James Wan’s Atomic Monster have begun development on Soulm8te, a thriller set in the same universe as M3GAN. It follows a man who “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 movie, directed by Kate Dolan, is scheduled for a 2026 release.
If that premise sounds familiar, you’re not alone. The story sounds a lot like a gender-swapped version of the Black Mirror Season 2 opener, “Be Right Back,” which follows a woman (Hayley Atwell) as she uses an android to cope with the loss of her boyfriend (Domnhall Gleeson). But Soulm8te will be vastly different from “Be Right Back” — and M3GAN — in terms of genre. It will reportedly be an “erotic thriller” inspired by “90s domestic thrillers, but with a modern, technological twist.”
Soulm8te may share the same universe as M3GAN, but that may be all the two have in common. It sounds like Soulm8te will take as much inspiration from the era of Fatal Attraction as its source material, so while M3GAN 2.0 will expand M3GAN into a series, Soulm8te will expand it into a cinematic universe. Then we’ll just have to wait to see what number gets crammed into a word next.
