M3GAN Spin-Off SOULM8TE Is Like “FATAL ATTRACTION With Robots” According To James Wan
Kate Dolan's R-rated erotic thriller is set to release in theaters on January 2, 2026.
The M3GAN universe is soon set to expand in the series' first spin-off, SOULM8TE, with producer James Wan giving an update on the R-rated erotic thriller, currently in post-production.
From director Kate Dolan (You Are Not My Mother), who rewrote the screenplay from an original draft by Rafael Jordan (Salvage Marines) with story by Wan, Ingrid Bisu, and Rafael Jordan, SOULM8TE is set to release in theaters on January 2, 2026. The spin-off stars Evil Dead Rise‘s Lily Sullivan and David Rysdahl (No Exit), the latter as a man who acquires an artificially intelligent android (Sullivan) to cope with the loss of his recently deceased wife. He attempts to create a truly sentient partner but inadvertently turns a supposedly harmless love-bot into a deadly soulmate.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Wan, producing through his company Atomic Monster, Wan assures that unlike the PG-13 M3GAN and M3GAN 2.0, SOULM8TE is a distinctly grown-up story:
M3GAN, obviously, dabbles in the PG-13 world, the younger demographic. We always felt like there might be a more adult story to tell, and that's really what SOULM8TE is […] SOULM8TE is basically set in the same AI world but seen through a more grown-up perspective, one that embraces all the great erotic thrillers from the '90s. It's like Fatal Attraction but with robots.”
M3GAN and M3GAN 2.0 star Allison Williams, who serves as executive producer on SOULM8TE, adds that the spin-off was partly created as a way explore adult themes surrounding the dangers of AI without bringing the mini maniac into the equation:
“Here's how I would describe it: Everyone has already pictured it […] When the first movie came out, we knew everyone was going to be imagining this, so we were like, ‘Don't do that to our girl.' We will give you a different person and a different story and an R-rated world to do this in. Let M3GAN be M3GAN, and leave her out of this completely.
It's already happening in parts of the world. These exist […0 So it felt irresistible to then say, if a M3GAN existed in our world, someone would take that tech and put it in the form of a female-bodied person whose sole purpose on the planet is to pleasure a person. We extrapolate from there.”
