By MICHAEL GINGOLD
The new chiller about the perils of AI is booting up next month.
Universal Pictures Home Entertainment will release Blumhouse/Atomic Monster’s SOULM8TE exclusively on digital platforms to watch with no ads or subscription required starting August 1. Originally announced for theatrical release in January, it was directed by Kate Dolan (YOU ARE NOT MY MOTHER) and scripted by Dolan and Rafael Jordan, and is part of the M3GAN universe. Lily Sullivan (EVIL DEAD RISE), David Rysdahl, Claudia Doumit and Arty Froushan star; the synopsis: “SOULM8TE follows a grieving engineer tasked with testing a ruthless tech giant’s new artificially intelligent android. But when he attempts to program her to be a truly sentient soulmate, she develops needs of her own—unleashing a relentless spree of precision-engineered mayhem.”
“When Blumhouse Atomic Monster first approached me about an erotic thriller set in the M3GAN-verse, I thought, are you insane?” Dolan says. “But something drew me in. We exist in a bizarre time where companies sell us ‘connection’ through apps, algorithms, and AI. Yet those are the same forces pulling us apart. The lonelier we get, the more dependent we become on the tools doing the pulling. SOULM8TE is a movie about that vicious cycle. It is a satirical, unhinged movie that explores desire, obsession, autonomy and control. It’s a movie that knows how ridiculous it is, and I’d argue it’s best watched the way you’d watch BASIC INSTINCT or SHOWGIRLS now, with friends, a drink in hand, and zero shame about shouting at the screen.”
Adds producer and Blumhouse/Atomic Monster CEO Jason Blum, “Kate Dolan has expertly blended tech paranoia with erotic thriller in SOULM8TE, which is just as fun as that sounds, but also has more on its mind than you might think.”
