1. Smile 2
Paramount Pictures | NEW
$23M Domestic Opening Weekend
$46M Global Cume
Paramount has a big grin on its face this weekend as horror sequel Smile 2 out-paced expectations with an estimated $23M opening bow on 3,619 screens for a $6,355 PSA, $3M over our prediction panel’s highest-end estimates for this title. This also tops the $22.6M the original earned over its September 30, 2022 debut frame, and—more importantly—signals a new viable franchise to fill the transitioning studio’s coffers. With a $400k difference, we may have to wait until Monday’s actuals to officially declare it better than the first, but it’s definitely on par. Rotten Tomatoes displayed critical and audience alignment with 83% critical and 84% audience scores, while PostTrak also trended well with 3 out of 5 stars (same as the first Smile), 35% excellent/33% very good for an overall 68% total positive score, with 49% definite recommend. CinemaScore was a “B,” perfectly solid for the horror genre.
Here’s how the 3-Day looked, including $2.5M in Thursday previews…
- Friday – $9.5M
- Saturday – $8.1M
- Sunday – $5.4M
Much was made about this being the third “grinning psycho” movie in a row after Joker: Folie à Deux and Terrifier 3. It’s almost time for the coroner to call the time of death on Joker domestically as it hemorrhaged 1,245 screens and dropped another -69% to take $2.1M at #6 for a $56.4M cume, likely on its way to under $70M before the run is done. Global cume stands at a projected $192M through Sunday. Meanwhile, Terrifier 3 held on the upper end of expectations with $9.3M, a -51% drop as it added 248 screens for a $36.2M cume, out-performing The Strangers: Chapter 1 and Night Swim on its way to besting Speak No Evil ($36.4M). Although Terrifier 3 might not have a shot at taking down Longlegs‘ $74M benchmark, Art the Clown can already lay claim to being in one of the best performing (and most profitable) horror entries of 2024.
Terrifier didn’t seem to cannibalize business from Smile as feared since there is always room for more than one gore champ during the Halloween season, and Paramount spent big on P&A. The second Smile did, however, take in over -$1000 less in Per Screen Averages than Terrifier 3 last frame, so there’s that. Interestingly, Terrifier 2 and the original Smile also went head-to-head in 2022, but the second Terrifier made under $2M every frame, hardly a blip on the radar.
Smile 2 over-indexed in a number of cities including LA, NY, Chicago, Toronto, Detroit, and Montreal, a.k.a. the big urban areas where the studio targeted many of its billboard campaigns and “smiling people” publicity stunts. Digital marketing on Spotify, TikTok, and Twitch was also on point. The audience was nearly split but slightly male-skewing at 52% to 48% female, with 40% of ticket buyers in the 18-34 range and 30% 25-34, meaning 70% were in the 18-34 grouping, always the target ages for a commercial slasher film like this.
Here’s how demographics looked, with an overall 60% multi-cultural spread…
- 40% Caucasian
- 34% Hispanic
- 15% Black
- 7% Asian
- 4% other
Internationally, Smile 2 played just as strong with another $23M from 62 markets, becoming the biggest horror opening of 2024 in 13 of those markets, including France, Germany, and Italy. The Top 3 territories are the UK ($2.6M), France ($2.1M), and Germany ($2M). Overseas results are 41% bigger than the original Smile’s opening weekend, with the global cume standing at $46M.
Other Notable Performances
A24’s nonlinear romance We Live in Time, starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh, added 980 screens to jump into the Top 5 at #5 with $4.1M for a $4,250 PSA (the second-highest for a wide release behind Smile 2). Garfield did mucho press for the film, directed by John Crowley (Brooklyn), which provided some much-needed female audience counter-programming to all the bloodshed at the top of the charts. Critical is a solid enough 80% on RT, but the audience score is even higher at 89%, which could bode well for future frames.
After taking the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes festival, Neon’s Anora had a spectacular limited launch earning $540,000 thousand on 6 screens for a $90,000 PSA. That’s the biggest PSA of the year and the second-biggest of the post-pandemic era after Asteroid City ($142.2K). The Sean Baker film currently boasts a 98% critical score on RT. NEON Distribution head Elissa Federoff said in a statement, “We’re incredibly excited about this weekend’s record-breaking results and the fantastic critical and audience response to Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or-winning film, Anora. Baker is a singular director who truly understands the power of the theatrical experience and how important it is for films to be seen in the theater. With Mikey Madison in her unparalleled performance as Anora and the film’s strong awards potential, there’s no doubt it will continue to captivate a broad audience as we move into the Fall.”
Sunday’s Studio Weekend Estimates | Weekend 42 – 2024
Total 3-Day Domestic Estimates: $66,365,607M | (-21.2% vs 2023)
| Title | Weekend Estimate | % Change | Locations | Location Change | PSA | Domestic Total | Week | Distributor |
| Smile 2 | $23,000,000 | 3,619 | $6,355 | $23,000,000 | 1 | Paramount Pi… | ||
| The Wild Robot | $10,100,000 | -28% | 3,829 | -25 | $2,638 | $101,717,000 | 4 | Universal |
| Terrifier 3 | $9,307,881 | -51% | 2,762 | 248 | $3,370 | $36,215,033 | 2 | Cineverse |
| Beetlejuice Beetlejuice | $5,000,000 | -32% | 3,251 | -157 | $1,538 | $283,973,000 | 7 | Warner Bros. |
| We Live in Time | $4,185,758 | +1,699 | 985 | 980 | $4,250 | $4,506,030 | 2 | A24 |
| Joker: Folie à Deux | $2,180,000 | -69% | 2,857 | -1,245 | $763 | $56,443,000 | 3 | Warner Bros. |
| Piece by Piece | $2,100,000 | -45% | 1,873 | 8 | $1,121 | $7,602,000 | 2 | Focus Features |
| Transformers One | $1,965,000 | -48% | 2,169 | -589 | $906 | $56,635,000 | 5 | Paramount Pi… |
| Saturday Night | $1,800,000 | -47% | 2,336 | 27 | $771 | $7,632,000 | 4 | Sony Pictures |
| The Nightmare Before Christmas | $1,129,000 | -53% | 1,860 | 160 | $607 | $92,423,550 | 1,619 | Walt Disney |
| Hocus Pocus | $841,000 | 1,480 | $568 | $49,871,064 | 1,632 | Walt Disney | ||
| The Apprentice | $680,000 | -58% | 1,131 | -609 | $601 | $3,257,012 | 2 | Briarcliff E… |
| Deadpool & Wolverine | $679,000 | -13% | 1,525 | 535 | $445 | $636,296,828 | 13 | Walt Disney |
| Goodrich | $650,277 | 1,055 | $616 | $650,277 | 1 | Ketchup Ente… | ||
| My Hero Academia the Movie: You’re Next | $650,000 | -78% | 1,590 | -255 | $409 | $4,636,437 | 2 | Toho Interna… |
| Anora | $540,000 | 6 | $90,000 | $540,000 | 1 | Neon | ||
| Speak No Evil | $500,000 | -67% | 807 | -795 | $620 | $36,412,000 | 6 | Universal |
| Rumours | $314,083 | 630 | $499 | $314,083 | 1 | Bleecker Street | ||
| White Bird: A Wonder Story | $310,000 | -61% | 526 | -512 | $589 | $3,945,580 | 3 | Lionsgate |
| The Forge | $115,000 | -45% | 200 | -103 | $575 | $28,901,000 | 9 | Sony Pictures |
| Look Back | $92,892 | -64% | 83 | -79 | $1,119 | $1,832,802 | 3 | GKIDS |
| Megalopolis | $73,000 | -69% | 75 | -152 | $973 | $7,576,457 | 4 | Lionsgate |
| It Ends With Us | $55,000 | 2 | 433 | 379 | $127 | $148,403,000 | 11 | Sony Pictures |
| Am I Racist? | $37,500 | -71% | 88 | -119 | $426 | $12,260,921 | 6 | SDG Releasing |
| Alien: Romulus | $19,000 | -75% | 35 | -55 | $543 | $105,306,440 | 10 | 20th Century… |
| A Different Man | $17,011 | -66% | 35 | -68 | 486 | $623,939 | 5 | A24 |
| The Front Room | $13,668 | 0 | 19 | -3 | 719 | $3,589,764 | 7 | A24 |
| The Line | $8,487 | 1 | 8,487 | $8,487 | 1 | Utopia | ||
| Vindicating Trump | $2,050 | -90% | $13 | -54 | 158 | $1,370,469 | 4 | SDG Releasing |
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