‘Smile’ Wins Weekend With Strong $22 Million Debut

Well, this is a happy surprise. Paramount’sPARA
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Smile topped the domestic box office this weekend with a robust $22 million. That part isn’t a surprise, but rather that it legged out after an $8.2 million Friday, notching a strong (especially for horror) 2.68x weekend multiplier. As noted yesterday, the B- Cinemascore was more about the skewed nature of how horror movies poll among opening night audiences. Simply put, audiences who think a horror movie is not scary enough and those who think it’s too frightening or disturbing tend to push the grade down. Horror is weird like that, as nobody downvotes a comedy for being too funny.

Anyway, this is another win for Paramount in what has been a miraculous comeback year, with Brian Collins and friends seeing the light concerning the glory of theatrical. This, ironically, after replacing Jim Gianopulos specifically because Viacom wanted to emphasize streaming. Smile joins Scream, Jackass Forever, The Lost City, Sonic the Hedgehog and Top Gun: Maverick. Credit to Paramount’s marketing for selling a simple and primal visual, including A) a terrific trailer that played during almost every showing of Top Gun: Maverick and B) a fun gag whereby people stood deathly still and flashed a murder-grin at various sporting events in full view of the cameras.

Parker Finn’s Smile (review) is the third straight non-franchise, original, adult-skewing (or R-rated), concept-driven studio programmer to top the box office with over/under $20 million. It’s also the fifth time in six weekends (curse you, Top Gun: Maverick and your Labor Day victory) where a female-led programmer of this nature topped the weekend box office. Since late August, we’ve had Nathalie Emmanuel’s The Invitation ($7 million), Georgina Campbell’s Barbarian ($10 million), Viola Davis’ The Woman King ($19 million), Florence Pugh’s Don’t Worry Darling ($19 million) and now Sosie Bacon’s Smile ($22 million). Maybe throwing two years’ worth of female-led theatricals into the streaming woodchipper wasn’t a great idea.

The high-concept chiller concerns a young psychologist who gets cursed by an evil that threatens to end her life in a matter after it drives her crazy via scary images and creepy smiling faces. It’s a riff on the J-horror craze of the mid-2000s (The Ring, Dark Water, The Grudge, etc.), while the reviews (75% and 6.5/10 on Rotten Tomatoes) have tilted positive. I imagine Halloween Ends (October 14) may play as ‘for fans only.’ If so, then Halloween Ends opening over/under $45 million (or closer to $35 million, we’ll see) won’t prevent this new chiller from being a seasonal favorite and taking a crack at $60 million-plus.

There was a time when horror films like The Possession or When a Stranger Calls could pull over/under $20 million launches without breaking a sweat, to say nothing of recent original horror biggies like Lights Out, Don’t Breathe and Happy Death Day. But today, it hits harder when a new-to-you high-concept horror flick like The Black Phone or Smile opens with over/under $23 million. A sign of the times, but it’s still a win. Smile was supposed to be a Paramount+ release before test screenings convinced Paramount to go theatrical. And now they get all the riches and culture oomph associated with a successful theatrical release.