Long Range Forecast — October 18, 2024
Smile 2 | Paramount Pictures
Domestic Opening Weekend Range: $20M – $40M
Paramount Pictures’ Smile was one of the big theatrical success stories of 2022, not merely for its success at the box office—a $22.6M opening at the tail end of dead September, leading to a domestic cume of $105.9M—but for the fact that it initially wasn’t slated for a theatrical release at all. Quality scares, an original premise, and an innovative marketing strategy combined to make Smile the 16th biggest domestic earner of the year, out-earning releases with far bigger budgets.
All that heralds well for October’s Smile 2, hitting coming to theaters two years and change after its predecessor with writer/director Parker Finn returning. Horror sequels often have a tough time recapturing the magic of their predecessor when the latter is a sleeper hit, but opening in the heart of spooky season is a smart play and should still generate a profitable run for the affordably budgeted genre.
If Smile 2 does manage a higher debut than its predecessor, it will join the ranks of recent horror sequels Happy Death Day 2 U (2017; $9.4M opening, compared to Happy Death Day‘s $4.8M) and Scream VI (2023; $44.4M opening, compared to Scream‘s $30M). Though Happy Death Day 2 U debuted higher than Happy Death Day, its domestic total ($28.1M) ended up lower than that of the original film ($55.6M), a fate that Smile 2 could share should reviews and word of mouth trend negative. On the flip side, there are Warner Bros.’ Annabelle films, which opened with roughly similar amounts ($37.1M for the first film, $35M for the second) before 2017’s Annabelle: Creation left theaters with approximately 17 percent more than 2014’s Annabelle ($102M vs $84.2M).
The Scream and Annabelle movies, of course, came to theaters as entries as part of already established franchises and thus (perhaps) had less convincing to do among completionist horror fans who were already invested in Ghostface or the growing Conjuring universe. And while the first Annabelle movie came out in the weeks leading up to Halloween (October 2), Scream and Scream VI both benefited from Q1 release dates that provided little else by way of competition. Even the first Smile came out in late September; while there’s not a huge difference between the last weekend of September and the third weekend of October, it’s enough time for (the admittedly far less mainstream) Terrifier 3 to open and potentially, if it has a solid sophomore hold, eat into Smile 2‘s opening weekend. Once Smile 2 does come out, it won’t have much competition from other horror films for the rest of the year. That normally wouldn’t mean much, since horror viewership tends to drop off sharply after Halloween—but the first Smile bucked the trend by hanging around in the top five until mid-November, seven weeks into its run.
Tracking Updates [as of 9/20]
| Release Date | Title | Opening Weekend Range | Distributor |
| 9/27/24 | The Wild Robot | $30 – $40M | Universal |
| 9/27/24 | Megalopolis | $4 – $8M | Lionsgate |
| 10/4/24 | Joker Folie a Deux | $60 – $90M | Warner Bros |
| 10/11/24 | Terrifier 3 | $4 – $8M | Iconic Events |
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