Director Parker Finn is killing it with his debut feature film Smile. Going head to head with Billy Eichner‘s romantic comedy Bros as we move into October, Paramount’s Smile earned an impressive $2 million in its early Thursday previews ahead of its official opening day on September 30.
Playing in over 3,600 theaters, with doors opening at 7 PM, the popcorn horror managed to fill seats and maintain a high 76% on Rotten Tomatoes, with an audience score of 82%. Analysts predict the film will pull ahead of Bros for opening weekend by about only $4 to $5 million, given a historical boost with spooky season upon us. Compare Smile‘s Thursday previews to recent genre titles like 20th Century and New Regency’s Barbarian, which raked in $850k in its early previews, and Universal Pictures and Blumhouse’s The Black Phone at $3 million. The movie is expected to pull somewhere in the high teens for the overall opening weekend.
Based on his award-winning 2020 short Laura Hasn’t Slept, Finn wrote and directed the nearly-two-hour-long R-rated horror for a fairly low budget of $17 million. Under one of the year’s most successful studios, Smile knocked it out of the park with marketing, placing eerie smilers at major league baseball games and behind Al Roker and Hoda Kotb on national television. On top of that, they dominated social media promo with active posts on Twitter, targeting users who interacted with their page and generating special effects for likes. With the active marketing and the striking visuals, the movie managed to generate plenty of excitement and notoriety as far as the genre for the season goes.
Reviews for Finn’s first feature film have been fairly positive, as well. Similar to movies like 2014’s It Follows and the cult classic The Ring, Smile offers its audience fun scares and tense performances. The cast is strong and holds up some of the plot’s weaker elements, with Sosie Bacon as an impressive lead. Bacon is backed with solid performances by Scream 5‘s Kyle Gallner, Jessie T. Usher (The Boys), and the haunting Caitlin Stasey, who starred in Finn’s original short. The cast is joined by Kal Penn, Judy Reyes, Robin Weigert, Gillian Zinser and Dora Kiss.
While initially predicted to reach the high teens, it’s possible Smile will be seeing Black Phone earnings, somewhere around $23 million over its opening weekend. In theaters now, you can check out the full trailer below:
