In 2022, Parker Finn's Smile ended up being a massive box office surprise. While there was originally a plan to release the horror movie via streaming, Paramount Pictures took a shot putting the film in theaters, and it became a huge spooky season hit. Hot buzz led it to win its opening weekend, and by the time it was done playing on the big screen, it made over $200 million worldwide.
Now, two years later, Parker Finn's Smile 2 is here, and it appears as though the sequel is on the same success trajectory.
The new horror film earned an extremely positive response going into its opening weekend (you can read my four-star Smile 2 CinemaBlend review), and that has translated to an opening weekend for the follow-up even bigger than its predecessor's. Check out the full Top 10 below and join me after for analysis.
| TITLE | WEEKEND GROSS | DOMESTIC GROSS | LW | THTRS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Smile 2* | $23,000,000 | $23,000,000 | N/A | 3,619 |
| 2. The Wild Robot | $10,100,000 | $101,717,000 | 2 | 3,829 |
| 3. Terrifier 3 | $9,307,881 | $36,215,033 | 1 | 2,762 |
| 4. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice | $5,000,000 | $283,973,000 | 3 | 3,251 |
| 5. We Live In Time | $4,185,758 | $4,506,030 | 18 | 985 |
| 6. Joker: Folie À Deux | $2,180,000 | $56,443,000 | 4 | 2,857 |
| 7. Piece By Piece | $2,100,000 | $7,602,000 | 5 | 1,873 |
| 8. Transformers One | $1,965,000 | $56,635,000 | 6 | 2,169 |
| 9. Saturday Night | $1,800,000 | $7,632,000 | 7 | 2,336 |
| 10. The Nightmare Before Christmas | $1,129,000 | $92,423,550 | 9 | 1,860 |
Smile 2 Is Doing Matching Business With Its Predecessor, Putting Up Similar Opening Weekend Numbers
Smile was a huge title within the on-going boom for original horror, and it got off to a hot start when it first arrived in theaters in late September 2022. The movie arrived on the big screen a week after Olivia Wilde's buzzy Don't Worry Darling and during the same weekend as Nicholas Stoller's Bros, and it put on an impressive show – earning $22.6 million in its first three days.
According to early results from The Numbers, Smile 2 is doing similar/slightly better business, having earned $23 million so far domestically.
These aren't the best results for the new release, as there is typically hope that a sequel will significantly outperform its predecessor thanks to brand recognition and fan anticipation, but there are many angles to view the results from that skew positive. Perhaps the most important is that this isn't a follow-up release that went ridiculously overboard with its budget in the wake of big box office success. Variety reported back in 2022 that the production of Smile worked with a $17 million budget, and while Smile 2 was more expensive, Deadline says that Parker Finn worked with a modest $28 million price tag.
For comparison, this is quite different than what we saw from Warner Bros. and Todd Phillips' Joker movies. While 2019's Joker was a major success as a mid-budget production, the film's billion-dollar success led Warner Bros. to invest big time in Joker: Folie à Deux, and that blockbuster is now shaping up to be a significant box office disaster. (As you can see from the Top 10 chart above, things are not getting better for the DC comics adaptation).
It should be noted that Smile 2 is at a bit of a disadvantage compared to Smile, as it notably has less runway leading up to Halloween at the end of the month (it will be interesting to see how the film continues to perform after the holiday), but there are other positive things to note in the wake of its opening weekend performance.
Perhaps the biggest thing that Smile 2 has going for it compared to Parker Finn's first movie is buzz, as metrics suggest that audiences are digging the sequel more than the original. CinemaScore surveys, for example, returned a "B" grade for the 2024, which is not only solid for a horror title, but a half-grade step up compared to the "B-" that Smile got two years ago. Additionally, critics are not the only ones showing more love for the follow-up. On Rotten Tomatoes, the 83 percent score from professionals is a few ticks higher than the 80 percent audience rating for the first movie, but the 84 percent movie-goer score is notably higher than the 77 percent received by the 2022 release.
These results suggest that Smile 2 is going to have positive word of mouth going for it in the coming weeks, and that should be huge. A major part of the reason why Smile was such a big hit was because its weekend-to-weekend drops were super small in the aftermath of its debut, and potential now exists for the sequel to do similar business.
Needless to say, next weekend's results should be fascinating – especially because of the upcoming blockbuster competition. In 2022, Smile had to contend with some significant box office players with David Gordon Green's Halloween Ends and Jaume Colett Serra's Black Adam, and this year, Kelly Marcel's Venom: The Last Dance will be arriving to try and rain on Smile 2's parade. It should be a fascinating Hollywood showdown.
Terrifier 3 Settles For Third Place As The Wild Robot Crosses $100 Million Domestically
What's good news for Smile 2 isn't the greatest news for Damien Leone's Terrifier 3, as the new release significantly diverted the attention of genre fans... but it hardly resulted in disaster. As reported last Sunday, the gore-centric horror film has a stunning theatrical debut, making $18.9 million, and today we can report that it experienced just a modest weekend-to-weekend dip of 51 percent.
Terrifier 3 added another $9.3 million to its coffers domestically in the last three days, bringing its gross to date in the market up to $36.2 million. When one considers that the movie was made for just $2 million, it's hard to call it anything other than an unmitigated success. An indie production making this kind of box office impact is a remarkable thing to see, and it seems likely that the title will stick around in the Top 5 until the end of the month.
Perhaps the only notable "ding" one can recognize in the film's box office results is that it had to settle for third place – but that's just because Chris Sander's The Wild Robot continues to do amazing business. The new feature from DreamWorks Animation has had yet another excellent Friday-to-Sunday, and in taking place for the third week in a row, the movie has hit a significant milestone: it has now made over $100 million domestically. Featuring the voices of Lupita Nyong'o and Pedro Pascal, the new release has been earning overwhelming positive praise since its premiere last month at the Toronto International Film Festival, and it now ranks as the sixteenth biggest release of the year domestically.
Looking ahead, how will things shake out as we go into the final weekend of October? Be sure to head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday for a full rundown of the box office results, and check out our 2024 Movie Release Calendar to start planning all of your trips to the theater between now and the end of December.
