Upcoming M3gan spin-off, Soulm8te, can’t even spell its own name right

While we wait patiently for M3GAN 2.0—and this writer’s dream project, “M3GAN Loves Annabelle”—Atomic Monster and Blumhouse have begun developing a spin-off. Soulm8te, a techno-based erotic thriller, will be about a man who turns to an AI-powered sex robot “to cope with the loss of his dead wife.” As one imagines, things go awry when someone sets his doll to evil, inadvertently turning this “harmless lovebot into a deadly soulmate.” That all sounds well and good, but how could they botch the title? It should be spelled Soulm8.

M3GAN rolled off the tongue. It had the meme-inspiring cache being a horror movie with a mundane woman’s name as its title. The added “3" built on its campy fun. We all know this is kind of dumb, but it’s dumb in the right way. Not only was this a movie about an evil little doll named M3GAN, but characters and fans could also get pedantic with it. The people referring to it as “M-three-gan” always get a kick over taking the veritable scenic route on the title. But Soulm8te? Does anyone look forward to saying “Soulm-eight-te”? Well, we suppose “Soulmatey” has something approaching a ring. But we encourage Blumhouse to pull a Sean Parker and lose the “te.” It’s cleaner.

You Are Not My Mother director Kate Dolan will direct off a script she rewrote. Per Variety, the original draft comes from Rafael Jordan and a story by Jordan, James Wan, and Ingrid Bisu, all of whom presumably passed on the simple title “Soulm8.” Perhaps they were concerned that audiences would assume this was the seventh sequel in the “Soulm” series that doesn’t exist.

Soulm8te isn’t coming out until January 2, 2026, so there’s still plenty of time to be routinely and unnecessarily mad about this bastardization of leetspeak. But what happened? M3GAN was so clean, so instantly recognizable for what it was. There were other options, too. Here’s some off of the dome that would make infinitely more sense:

• SØulmate
• SØulm4te
• $oulmate
• S0ulm@te
• Soulmat3
• $oulm&te
• 2oulm4te
• 20v1nnД+3
• 5()1[V]473$0I_I1/V@+e