Paramount’s horror success Smile is getting the sequel treatment, whilst its director has earned a multi-film deal.
Smile was undoubtedly one of the success stories of 2022. For those of us who prize the cinematic experience highly, it was also one of those examples that can be held up as proof that in the current age of a zillion different distribution models, there are still reasons to release ‘smaller’ genre films into cinemas. $217m of reasons in fact, with the film having amassed a boggling box office total of a quarter of a billion dollars from a mere $17m production budget.
As you can read here, the original plan was for the film to skip cinemas and head straight for the Paramount+ streaming platform with the studio only changing its mind off the back of a tremendously successful test screening.
No doubt the studio is very glad it opted for a theatrical release, and the success of Smile continues to shape Paramount’s strategy. News has emerged to day that the studio has signed up the film’s director, Parker Finn to a long-term deal. Of late, we’ve seen some big deals take place with horror filmmakers being signed up to production deals. James Wan has moved over to Universal and Barbarian's Zach Creggers has been lured to New Line. Now Paramount seems to have made a similar play in the horror space, inking a multi-film deal with Finn.
Naturally, the first film of that deal could well be Smile 2 – although that isn’t yet confirmed we can imagine it would be a priority for Paramount. No release date or synopsis have been revealed as of yet, but Finn has previously indicated that he has a direction that he wants to explore for a sequel.
We’d imagine he’ll be armed with a bigger budget to do so as well.
We’ll bring you more on Smile 2 as we hear it but with all of these horror maestros earning studio deals, fans of the genre could be in for a golden period in a couple of years when these agreements begin to yield films.
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