The “M3GAN” Cinematic Universe might not be expanding after all.
“Soulm8te,” a sci-fi spinoff about man who buys an android to cope with the death of his wife, has been removed from Universal’s release calendar. The film, which was set for Jan. 9, will be shopped around town to other Hollywood studios.
“Soulm8te,” an erotic thriller with a technological twist, was a companion piece, of sorts, to “M3GAN,” a dark horror comedy about a murderous artificial intelligence doll with the government name of Model 3 Generative Android. “M3GAN” became a sleeper hit with $181 million at the global box office. However this year’s sequel “M3GAN 2.0” misfired with just $39 million by the end of its theatrical run. Though not catastrophic given the $25 million production budget, those ticket sales represent a fatal decline in interest from the original — and certainly not enough enthusiasm to spawn spinoff stories.
Kate Dolan wrote and directed “Soulm8te,” which stars Lily Sullivan, David Rysdahl and Claudia Doumit. Blumhouse founder Jason Blum and Atomic Monster founder James Wan produced the film.
After a scary-good run of horror hits (“Paranormal Activity,” “The Purge,” “Get Out” and “Halloween” among them), Blumhouse has endured a rare fallow year at the box office. Although October’s “Black Phone 2” ($131 million against a $30 million budget) and December’s “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” ($175 million to date against a $36 million budget) helped turn around the company’s 2025 fortunes, misfires over the past 12 months have included January’s “Wolf Man” ($34 million against a $25 million budget), March’s “The Woman in the Yard” ($23 million against a $12 million budget) and April’s “Drop” ($28 million against an $8 million budget).
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