Writer/director Parker Finn found success in “Smile 2” not by slavishly replicating the thrills of the original, but by taking what made the 2022 original special and amplifying and enhancing virtually everything about it — it’s a bigger, scarier, more gripping sequel that is currently the No. 1 film at the U.S. box office.
Rather than a small town, the action has moved to New York City. And instead of clinical professionals investigating the phenomenon of a demonic “curse” that passes from one person to the next (and results in that uber-creepy smile), it’s a global pop star named Skye Riley (played by “Aladdin” breakout Naomi Scott) who has become infected with the demonic force.
Horror sequels are having a moment. Warner Bros.’ “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” has grossed $435 million worldwide since hitting theaters last month and is still in the box office Top 10, and the indie “Terrifier 3” has amassed $46 million worldwide on a budget of just $2 million. Add “Smile 2” to the hit list with $51 million at the worldwide box office after just one week in release against a $28 million budget.
But Finn sought to avoid the trap that many horror sequels find themselves in by studying other movie sequels for inspiration and looking for ways to make familiarity a vehicle for doing something brand new so that audiences “fall in love all over again.”
“There’s been a lot of very cynical horror sequels out there that feel like, oh, there’s an opportunity to really quickly make a cash grab and exploit the title,” Finn told TheWrap. “For me, as a filmmaker, I can’t just spit something out.”
Instead of horror sequels, specifically, Finn looked at things like the jump between “The Terminator” and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” or “Alien” to “Aliens” to figure out how to “bring audiences back and then expand it in a way that it feels like ‘I’m so excited [about] this movie,’” he said.
“Smile 2” brought in $25 million in its domestic opening, good enough to top the box office.
With the oversized success of “Smile 2,” it seems likely there will be another entry and perhaps an expansion.
“If there was a demand for more, that would be wonderful,” Finn said. “I would want to make sure that it’s moving forward in a way that feels thoughtful … that’s exciting and brand new … I need to have that bolt of electricity from the beginning to carry me through.”
From Paramount+ original to $200 million global winner
For Finn, the opportunity to tell another “Smile” story felt like a miracle. The original movie was initially meant to debut on Paramount’s direct-to-consumer streaming platform Paramount+. But when execs got a look at the movie, they realized its potential commercial appeal and turned it into a major theatrical event (it wound up making more than $100 million domestic and $200 million globally). The first “Smile” was budgeted at $17 million. For the sequel, the budget increased to a still-modest $28 million.
“While I was making it, never in a million years did I think, Oh, there’s going to be a sequel,” Finn told TheWrap. “I was just hoping people would discover it.”
When “all of the external forces” asked him what he had in mind for a sequel, Finn paused. “I really wanted to step back from what I had done in the first film, and try to be like, What is the least likely path forward for a sequel?” he said. “I really wanted to challenge myself and drill down. Any idea that I could come up with that first week or two, I was like, This is too obvious. I really held it to task.”
As much as Finn loved the “external, supernatural, high concept stuff,” he was just as interested in the character story. “I knew I needed to find a character, somebody I can really hang this on in a way that people will go on this ride again,” Finn said.
When he hit on the idea of focusing the movie on a global pop star, at first he wasn’t sure if it would work, thinking Paramount would reject it, leaving him to start over from scratch and lean on a more conventional approach. “The studio is going to say, ‘No way, that’s ridiculous,’” Finn said. “But I went in and to Paramount’s credit, they got behind it.”
Finding the right person to fill the shoes of Skye Riley was going to be a task no matter what. While the singing and dancing could be “manipulated to some degree with the tools of filmmaking,” Finn said, it was the dramatic performance that he “needed to anchor into.”
He met with several actresses, but then connected with Scott about another project while he was writing “Smile 2.” It was supposed to be a 30-minute coffee, but the two ended up talking for two-and-a-half hours. “I was so impressed with her,” Finn said. “And I saw how hungry she was to do something different and really throw herself into the deep end on something.” When they were finally ready to cast the film, Scott came in and “blew me away.”
Just as challenging as casting Skye Riley was replicating the unexpected thrill of the first movie, which concluded with the reveal of a giant, towering monster. It’s a little bit like “The Ring” – you can only see that little girl crawl out of the television one time. Finn said he agreed with this assessment.
In the latest film, Skye is prepping a world tour and burdened by a constantly present hive of personnel. This isn’t someone who can suffer in isolation. Everyone will see her disintegrate.
“I knew that I couldn’t rest on my laurels, that the audience coming in is going to be ahead of the characters,” Finn said. He knew that he needed to make sure that he could move the narrative forward “in a way that even people who come in suspicious or feel like they are ahead of things can still get freaked out and surprised.”
The Smiler, as the demonic creature is called, was purposefully deployed late in the first movie and for a very specific amount of time. And Finn knew coming into the sequel that he didn’t “want to do this thing where we’re suddenly exploring something that happened in the 13th century at some monastery … I love how slippery and unknowable and freaky it is,” Finn said.
Finn found it challenging to maintain a level of mystery while also asking new questions and being careful not to overexpose its marquee creature.
The original movie was designed to be a self-contained, one-off story. Finn figured he could “glue them to this character and get them so freaked out over this character’s journey, and inside of that, use ‘Smile’ to create some brand new scares and ways of making people incredibly anxious and freaked out.” He also wanted to make people laugh and “be turned upside down in their seats.”
Finn said he is primed to make a third “Smile.” Everything needs a whole universe these days. Why not the demonic curse of “Smile”? Everybody loves the Smiler. While Finn is working on a remake of cult horror movie “Possession” with Robert Pattinson (“I asked myself, OK, is there something I can do with this where I can both honor and homage the original, but like, have a new conversation with it? That was the goal”), he intends to stick with the world of “Smile,” which he refers to as his “baby.”
Finn likes the idea that new versions of “Smile” would “keep getting crazier and crazier and more unexpected,” he said. “That seems really exciting to me and a fresh approach to that dreaded word franchise.”
That’s right — we could all be smiling for years to come.
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