Paramount and Temple Hill are grinning widely.
Their new movie, Smile 2, won the domestic box office race with an estimated $23 million from 3,619 theaters, including Imax and other premium large-format screens. That would put the film’s debut just ahead of the first Smile, a sleeper hit that opened to $22.6 million in late September 2022 on its way to grossing more than $217 million worldwide against a $17 million budget.
Overseas, the sequel likewise took in $23 million.
With writer and director Parker Finn returning, the sequel follows a malevolent spirit that jumps hosts via a diabolical grin, this time infecting a troubled pop star (Naomi Scott) and feeds off of her ample trauma, according to The Hollywood Reporter‘s review of the film. Scott stars opposite Lukas Gage, Rosemarie DeWitt and Miles Gutierrez-Riley. The sequel was budgeted at $28 million, still a modest sum for a major studio film.
Smile 2 earned a B CinemaScore from audiences, compared to the B- the first film received. It also had to fend off competition from holdover slasher pic Terrifier 3, which opened to $18.9 million last weekend, despite being unrated and doing zero TV ads.
Terrifier 3, from Cineverse, came in third this weekend with just north of $9 million from 2,762 cinemas, a solid hold and putting its domestic total at roughly $36 million against a $2 million production budget.
Some are speculating that DreamWorks/Universal’s The Wild Robot is benefiting from Terrifier 3 since theaters won’t let anyone under 17 see the latter of not accompanied by an adult. (Exhibitors are treating it like an R-rated movie.) Rival studios suspect teens are buying tickets to see Wild Robot and then sneaking into Terrifier 3 (the same could also be true for Smile 2, which is rated R).
Whatever the case, Wild Robot, which is also available in the home via premium VOD, has bragging rights to holding second place in its fourth weekend as it crossed the $100 million mark domestically after earning another $10 million from 3,829 cinemas for a domestic tally of $101.7 million through Sunday and $196 million globally.
John Crowley’s romantic drama We Live in Time made news by climbing up the chart to fifth place as it successfully platformed into 985 theaters after opening in only a handful of cities last weekend. The Andrew Garfield-Florence Pugh earned $4.2 million from 985 locations. A24 will expand We Live in Time everywhere next weekend.
The big headline at the awards box office was Sean Baker’s Anora, which opened in six locations in New York and Los Angeles. The specialty movie from Neon follows a sex worker who falls for a Russian oligarch’s son. The feature won the prestigious Palme d’Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.
Anora posted an estimated per-theater average of $90,000, the best showing since Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City last year and among the top five of the past five years.
“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,” said Neon distribution chief Elissa Federoff.
Last weekend, a handful of rival Oscar contenders didn’t fare so well when opting to open nationwide versus a platform release, including Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night. THe Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice fell out of the top 10 in its second weekend.
Oct. 20, 8:00 a.m.: Updated with revised estimates.
This story was originally published Oct. 20 at 9:35 a.m.
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