'Smile 2' Wins the Weekend Box-Office Race
by EG
The weekend box-office race was won by the violent horror sequel Smile 2, while last week's top move, ultra-violent horror sequel Terrifier 3, slipped to third place. In the midst of the mayhem, animated family film The Wild Robot snuck through the gore to take second place. Read on for details.
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.
With writer and director Parker Finn returning, the sequel follows a malevolent spirit that jumps hosts, who then wear a diabolical grin. This time, the darkness infects 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, 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 place this weekend with just north of $9 million from 2,762 cinemas _ a solid hold that puts its domestic total at roughly $36 million against a $2 million production budget.
Some speculate that DreamWorks/Universal’s The Wild Robot is benefiting from Terrifier 3 since theaters won’t let anyone under 17 see the latter if 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 the R-rated Smile 2).
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.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.