After the surprise success of Smile in 2022, its sequel struggled to establish itself at the box office despite an increased budget. Back to the reasons for unexpected shortness of breath.
A real little horrific phenomenon released in 2022, Smilewritten and directed by Parker Finn based on his short film Laura Hasn’t Slepthad everything of a modest horror B series, designed to meet the adrenaline need of young adults in need of thrills.
Powered on social networks thanks to a viral communication campaign (with ordinary people filmed in the street wearing a Joker-like smile, and extras squatting in cinemas to freak out their seatmates), Smile was a big box office success. It also knew how to conquer horror fans, thanks to a simple but effective concept, and a grand apocalyptic finale.
The cinema industry likes to recycle its concepts endlessly, a sequel to Smile was of course started quickly. Smile 2 was therefore one of the most anticipated horror films of the year 2024. Unfortunately, it was unable to reproduce the same box office performance as its predecessor.
On the way to a smile 2
Smile, first of the name, made sparks at the box office. For a modest budget of $17 million, Parker Finn's film grossed $217 million at the worldwide box office (105 million in the United States and 112 million internationally). For comparison, Scream 5released the same year, only brought in 137 million dollars in revenue for a production cost of 24 million. As for the Nope by Jordan Peele, with its 68 million budget, it struggled to bring in 171 million dollars in the coffers.
For his part, Smile 2 benefited from a budget (more comfortable than the first) of 28 million dollars. However, it only grossed $132 million, distributed equally between domestic and international box office (66 million each). This represents 85 million dollars less than its predecessor. This is called severe disillusionment.
Despite a solid staging, a more developed mythology, and a critical dimension of the star system, Smile 2 was widely criticized for its quasi-remake aspect. This second opus takes up the clichés of the first, with a generous gore generosity, of course, but that was not enough to extract this second part from a nasty feeling of déjà vu.
That said, we must also put these declining figures into perspective. Although this is a poor performance, in absolute terms, 132 million revenue for 28 million invested, this remains a good score. We are far from any economic catastrophe.
It's Terrifying
The other parameter to take into account to explain this poor performance is on the calendar side. Smile 2 was released in France and the United States the week of October 16, with the Halloween holiday in mind, a period conducive to watching horror films. Unfortunately, Terrifier 3 came out a week before. And the third opus of the unhealthy adventures of Art the Clown devastated everything in its path.
There is a good chance that serious meat lovers would have preferred to see Damien Leone's film, Amputant Smile 2 of part of its audience. Terrifier 3 was a huge success, grossing $85 million worldwide, for a paltry budget of $2 million. Although it was banned for under-18s for its broadcast in French cinemas, the splatter brought together more than 490,000 spectators in France.
What's more, November 6 was released in French theaters The Substance. At the time of writing these lines, Coralie Fargeat's film has attracted 343,000 spectators, and has already grossed $52 million worldwide (note that The Substance was released in North America and the United Kingdom on September 20). Between two extreme proposals, the most conventional Smile 2 certainly didn't have the space to fully flourish.
The disappointment of Smile 2 must also be put into perspective in view of the poor performance of the year 2024 in the field of horror. We think in particular of Immaculate by Michael Mohan, with its 9 million budget, which only brought in 28 million dollars, and MaXXXine by Ti West, which only grossed $22 million worldwide, for a production cost of $15 million.
And all that still remains far from the complete failure that was The Watchers d'Ishana Night Shyamalanwhich only managed to collect $32 million at the worldwide box office, even though its budget was $30 million.
The biggest horrific surprise of 2024 will remain the Longlegs by Oz Perkins which, with 126 million dollars in revenue for a budget of 9 million, was a huge success for the production house Neon. A score which does not quite reach that of Smile 2but almost, and which is much better in proportion to its budget, especially for a film as niche and much less spectacle than that of Parker Finn.
Despite this semi-flop, the license Smile could still give birth to new opuses. In October 2024, the director entrusted GamesRadar that there were many avenues to develop his franchise.
“In my opinion, there are lots of different and interesting directions that the world of Smile can take. We have different possible paths. I'm waiting to see how audiences respond to Smile 2, but if it works, I think the sky's the limit. We can imagine everything…”
Smile 2 will now continue its career in VOD. The film has been available on SVOD platforms in the United States since November 19, 2024.
