Smile has crossed the $200 million mark worldwide and become the highest-grossing horror film of the year so far. The film, which is the feature debut of director Parker Finn, stars Sosie Bacon as Dr. Rose Cotter, who witnesses a traumatized emergency room patient die by suicide after being possessed by a strange entity. Afterward, she begins hallucinating terrifying images including various people—both strangers and familiar faces—staring at her with a frightening grin. The cast of the film also includes Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner, Caitlin Stasey, Kal Penn, Rob Morgan.
After opening on September 30, Smile hit number one at the box office, kicking off an extremely strong run for the original horror property. In addition to its solid opening, its week two drop was only 22%, the best second-week retention for a horror film since Jordan Peele's Get Out all the way back in 2017. Its astonishing box office run included the fact that its fourth weekend grossed higher than the second weekend of Halloween Ends, the finale of Blumhouse's slasher legacy sequel trilogy.
Per Variety, this weekend Smile has reached a worldwide box office total of $202.9 million between $99.1 million domestically and $103.8 million in international markets. This stellar gross lands it at the #19 slot of the highest-grossing movies of the year, just below DC League of Super-Pets. In addition to that achievement, this marks the film as the highest-grossing horror film in a year with especially strong returns for horror, even over the franchise outings Halloween Ends and Scream 2022. Plus, while Nope outgrossed Smile on the domestic front, its poorer international performance landed it just two slots below on the overall list.
Is Smile 2 Going to Happen?
So far, there has been no word from Paramount as to whether they will be green-lighting a Smile 2. However, the film's continued success with audiences across the globe is due to pique their interest in continuing the story, which itself was adapted from a short titled Laura Hasn't Slept that Finn released in 2020. Taking into account the fact that the horror film had a relatively low budget of only $17 million, there is a huge amount of incentive to turn the property into a franchise.
It seems like it is going to be a certainty that the film will get a follow-up sooner than later. However, producers may currently be negotiating contracts and fighting to figure out where the story can go from here. The ending of Smile implies that the storyline will continue in a specific direction, but it's possible that with a potential Smile 2 they may want to include a time jump or a different location and explore the continuation of the curse in an entirely new context.
Source: Variety