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Soulm8te lands unwanted record for the M3GAN franchise
Published 09:56 5 Aug 2026 BST
Updated 09:02 5 Aug 2026 BST
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Blumhouse’s risk doesn’t pay off
Blumhouse’s latest experiment has set a record, just not the kind the studio wanted. Soulm8te, the R-rated spinoff from the M3GAN universe, has debuted with the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score in the franchise’s history.
Released straight to streaming on 1 August 2026, the erotic thriller opened on 55% on Rotten Tomatoes, two points below M3GAN 2.0 and the weakest rating the horror franchise has posted, Screen Rant reports.
With only 11 reviews counted so far the figure could still shift, and the film has yet to register an audience score.
What Went Wrong With Soulm8te
Critics singled out Lily Sullivan’s turn as the programmed android and David Rysdahl’s grieving widower as highlights, but many felt the film leaned too heavily on the tropes of Fatal Attraction and Ex Machina rather than forging its own path. It is the franchise’s first R-rated entry, and follows the muted response to M3GAN 2.0.
The original M3GAN was a $181.8 million blockbuster, and Blumhouse had hoped to build a durable sci-fi horror brand around it.
For now, with the reviews still trickling in, the killer-doll universe joins another AI robot thriller struggling to recapture that first spark.
