Parker Finn’s creepy horror series Smile is now getting a Smile 3, with filming set to start next year. More here.
This year’s Smile 2 ramped up Parker Finn’s gloriously-creepy concept in many conceivable ways and the film proved to be a commercial success, generating around $140m worldwide from a $30m budget. It looked gorgeous and contained some wonderful set pieces and you can catch our review here.
While the sequel earned around $70m less than the original breakout hit, it was still very comfortably in profit and Paramount will certainly happy to back another entry in the series as it will almost certainly do the same.
A new listing on Production Weekly (courtesy of World Of Reel) reveals that Finn’s Smile 3 will enter production in 2025 although crucially, we don’t know when. That’s an important detail given that Smile 2 commenced filming in January of last year and was in cinemas by October. Should Finn have already done the bulk of his pre-production work then could we be looking at the same turnaround time and potentially looking forward to Smile 3 arriving next year?
It’s possible, if not a little unlikely. Paramount will probably want the film to release in its usual October slot and so the autumn of 2026 is probably the film’s targeted release date, but you never know. We’ve seen Ti West demonstrate with his own horror trilogy of late just how quickly films in the genre can be put together while still retaining their effectiveness.
Smile 2 came together rather quickly and didn’t suffer in its construction although that doesn’t mean the film was perfect. Its core narrative loop became obvious rather quickly and we’re hoping that Finn has something fresh up his sleeve this time as after two films, the general premise of a demon possessing its victim and making them see things that aren’t there feels a little played out at this point.
Finn also has a remake of Possession on his slate, with Robert Pattinson set to lead the cast of the remake of the 1981 horror flick. No firm dates have been announced with regards to that project as of yet so we’d imagine that Smile 3 will absolutely be arriving first. We’ll bring you more on this one as we hear it.
