Smile 2 has a lot to smile about at the weekend box office

Joker: Folie à Deux may have used Dick Van Dyke’s “Put On A Happy Face” in its promo, but it’s Smile 2 that has the whole world smiling with it. The entity clearly did its job, because the horror sequel spread to the masses in a big way. Smile 2 opened with $23 million at the box office this weekend, proving that—once again—sticking those creepy smiling actors at baseball games really does put butts in seats. It’s a shame this didn’t happen when Neon released Longlegs; that movie’s promo was also world-class, but it would have been funny to see someone pop up in all of that makeup at a football game or something. You wouldn’t even be able to tell it wasn’t Nicolas Cage.

Speaking of Neon, the indie had a great weekend with Anora, which brought in $540,000 despite a very limited opening at only six theaters in New York and California. According to Deadline, these returns make for the second-best opening theater average since COVID ($90,000 per theater), second only to Asteroid City at $142,200. This is great news for the Palme d’Or winner, which you can expect to see near, if not at the top of the list when it opens wide next weekend. 

For now, the rest of the top three is occupied by The Wild Robot with $10 million and Terrifier 3, the movie some people buying those Wild Robot tickets might actually be seeing, with $9 million. Another notable placement this week is the Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh-led romantic drama We Live In Time, which brought in $4 million from only 955 theaters around the country (likely with a bit of a boost from the Andrew Garfield-led romantic comedy, Chicken Shop Date with Amelia Dimoldenberg). Elsewhere, Joker: Folie à Deux clings onto the top ten in the sixth position, and the 2024 re-release of The Nightmare Before Christmas enters just in time for spooky season.

The full list, courtesy of Box Office Mojo, is below:

1. Smile 2, $23,000,000
2. The Wild Robot, $10,100,000
3. Terrifier 3, $9,307,882
4. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, $5,000,000
5. We Live in Time, $4,185,758
6. Joker: Folie à Deux, $2,180,000
7. Piece by Piece, $2,100,000
8. Transformers One, $1,965,000
9. Saturday Night, $1,800,000
10. The Nightmare Before Christmas (2024 re-release), $1,129,000