SMILE 3 Taps HELLRAISER Director David Bruckner as Parker Finn Steps Away
Paramount is moving forward with Smile 3, but this time the franchise is getting a new director. David Bruckner, the filmmaker behind Hellraiser and The Night House, has been tapped to direct the third installment, taking over for Parker Finn, who wrote and directed the first two movies.
Finn isn't leaving the franchise entirely. He's currently busy directing Paramount's remake of Possession, but he developed and pitched the story framework for Smile 3, which is expected to complete the trilogy. He'll also produce the film alongside Temple Hill, with Jonathan Fass serving as executive producer.
Nick Antosca, whose credits include Cape Fear and Brand New Cherry Flavor, is writing the screenplay. Between Bruckner's experience with disturbing supernatural horror and Antosca's knack for twisted storytelling, this seems like a pretty solid creative team to take the franchise into its next chapter.
I've really enjoyed the Smile movies so far, and I thought Smile 2 was definitely better than the first one. It took everything that worked about the original and pushed the horror further, with some genuinely disturbing sequences and a great performance from Naomi Scott. After that insane ending, I'm especially curious to see where they take the story next.
The franchise kicked off with the 2022 film Smile, starring Sosie Bacon as Dr. Rose Cotter, a psychiatrist who finds herself tormented by a supernatural entity that appears through people wearing terrifying smiles. The demon stalks its victims, destroys their sanity, and ultimately drives them to suicide, allowing the curse to continue spreading.
The 2024 sequel followed Scott's character, pop superstar Skye Riley, as she became the entity's latest victim. The film expanded the mythology and ended in a way that opened up some pretty wild possibilities for a third movie.
Finn previously talked about the potential future of the franchise, saying: "I think there are so many different, interesting directions the world of Smile can take, different roads it can go down.
“Right now I'm very excited to see how audiences respond to Smile 2 and if we are lucky with how audiences can connect with and embrace the film, I think the sky's the limit."
While Finn had expressed interest in returning to direct another installment, he also made it clear that he wanted these movies to remain focused on compelling characters rather than simply finding new ways to scare audiences.
He explained: “Well, I will say this, I think there are a lot of interesting roads that any future Smile could go down. For me, I love all the stuff that goes bump in the night, and all the really frightening things of the big concept of Smile and the Smiler.
“But really, for me, Smile is a vehicle to tell really intense and hopefully thoughtful character stories, and so I’d wanna make sure, regardless of if more than one person might have it, that we still find a way to really invest intimacy into the storytelling.
“That’s super important to me. But I think there are some really interesting tricks still up the sleeves of Smile.”
It's good to know Finn helped shape the direction of the third film, even if he won't be directing it. He's established a creepy world with plenty of room to explore, and Bruckner has already shown that he knows how to make supernatural horror both frightening and emotionally effective.
The big question now is how Smile 3 will follow up on the crazy events of the sequel. That ending potentially changes everything about how the entity operates, and I'm hoping the filmmakers take full advantage of it rather than simply repeating the formula of the previous two movies.
There's no release date announced yet, but I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what Bruckner brings to the franchise.