‘Smile’ Takes Shockingly Small 18% Drop To Pass $50 Million

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Smile had an even better hold than initially estimated. The $17 million R-rated horror romp, about a young emergency trauma shrink essentially stalked by demonic images of people smiling at her, earned $18.461 million in weekend two. That’s a drop of just 18%, the best drop for any R-rated horror flick since Get Out (-15% from a $33.3 million debut) in February of 2017. It’s the smallest drop for a number one opener since Crazy Rich Asians opened with $26.5 million over the Fri-Sun frame of a $35 million Wed-Sun debut and then fell just 6% for a $23 million second-weekend gross. It also brings the film’s domestic total past $50 million, with $92 million worldwide. Another hold like this, and we may be talking about Smile becoming the third R-rated movie since Bad Boys for Life (following Nope and Bullet Train) to crack $100 million domestic.

This is damn well unheard of in modern times. Get Out and Crazy Rich Asians had rave reviews, strong buzz (an A- and an A, respectively, from Cinemascore), oodles of free positive media attention and both qualified as a demographically specific event. Parker Finn’s Smile has solid reviews, solid buzz a B- from Cinemascore (pretty good for a horror movie) and was just this week’s court-appointed biggie. Even among horror films, it was opening amid The Invitation, Barbarian and Don’t Worry Darling. Not to be dismissive, but Smile is “just a movie,” a star-free, original (it’s based on the writer/director’s short film), loosely defined (the marketing mostly sells ‘scary people smiling and then people die), R-rated original. And yet, it’s playing like a word-of-mouth sensation. For a movie that played like a riff on The Ring (with a dash of It Follows and Drag Me to Hell for good measure), well, now it’s performing like one too.

Gore Verbinski’s The Ring earned $15 million in 1,981 theaters in October of 2002 amid solid reviews and ‘scariest movie I’ve ever seen’ buzz among younger moviegoers. The Naomi Watts-starring remake of the Japanese horror film was a ‘new-to-you’ spectacular, terrifying audiences and coming off (thanks to Verbinski’s talent and a $48 million budget) like the biggest-scaled horror film since Tobe Hopper’s Lifeforce. DreamWorks added 653 theaters and watched the film score $18.5 million (+23%) in weekend two. It would earn $18.1 million, $15.5 million and $10.6 million in the next three weekends, stretching well into mid-November, ending with a stunning $129 million domestic ($203 million adjusted-for-inflation) and $249 million worldwide. The Grudge would open with $39 million two years later and The Ring part Two would open to $35 million in early 2005, but the J-horror boom mainly was over by the time Pulse bombed in 2006.

I don’t think Smile will go the way of The Ring (either in raw grosses or adjusted for inflation) since Halloween Ends opens this week and next week sees Black Adam and Ticket to Paradise. Halloween Ends (concurrently on Peacock) will be brisk but brief, while Smile could remain the must-see scary movie of the season. Think Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull topping $785 million global but placing behind in the zeitgeist behind Iron Man ($585 million) in early summer 2008. That I’m even making this comparison is a testament to the film’s blow-out success. When an original horror movie opens with $22 million and then nabs another $18 million in weekend two, well, a theoretical Smile 2 is quickly on its way to being a breakout sequel. Unless, heaven forbid, Paramount first gives Parker Finn $25-$35 million to make another original flick.

Horror remains near-bulletproof as a safe theatrical sub-genre (see also: Barbarian nearing $40 million domestic and The Black Phone and Nope earn a combined $331 million global). Betting on theatrical when you know you have a marketable winner, as was the case with this ‘initially intended for Paramount+’ chiller, can reap financial rewards well beyond the best hopes for streaming or VOD potential. Paramount is having a miraculous box office recovery, riding high on a variety of films (Scream, Jackass Forever, The Lost City, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Top Gun: Maverick and now Smile), none of which were 104% sure things. Paramount’s marketing department sold the primal hook (scary people smiling at you and the implied promise of gruesome death) and screened it early enough to build a strong critical consensus. It let the crowdpleasing movie, one about trauma but sans the yellow highlighter, do the rest. Happy Halloween, indeed.