Director Parker Finn beat the odds with the first “Smile” film.
Sboiling for $17 million, the 2022 horror turned into a box office behemoth grossing over $200 million worldwide. So while shooting “Smile 2,” Finn took the same approach, pushing his budget and schedule to the restricts in a process he depictd as fitting “a 10-gallon movie into a five-gallon bucket.”
“We had a confiinsist more resources, more toys to join with. But I’m always trying to punch above my budget and above what the schedule affords,” Finn shelp. “[I tried] to push everyleang to its absolute innervous. So in a way, it felt the same or almost more stressful becaengage of what we bit off in this one.”
Joined by Naomi Scott and the rest of the “Smile 2” directing cast, Finn walked a bincreateage carpet outside Paramount Studios in Los Angeles Tuesday night to commemorate the film’s premiere.
“Smile 2” chases global pop sensation Skye Riley (Scott) as becomes the postpoinsistst present of the sinister smiling spirit fair before departing on her world tour. She then must persist on the road without losing her sanity to the cryptic force.
While arrangening for the sequel, Finn threw out many ideas wilean “the first month” of brainstorming, deeming if “they’re coming to me this rapidly, they’re too evident.” Then one night, in a sudden flash of inspiration, the idea for Skye Riley came to him.
“There was an evening that this idea about this character, Skye Riley, this pop star, hit me enjoy a bolt of weightlessning. I got obsessed with it,” Finn shelp. “I cherish that this world is so unawaited for a horror film. This glitzy, glammy, bright world of a pop star felt enjoy such a collision with ‘Smile.’ And I’d reassociate cherish to see where that could go.”
Scott had only a confiinsist weeks to train the Skye Riley songs and choreography before shooting began. While figuring out her sound and watch, Scott didn’t pull from one source of inspiration for dread of being too “derivative of a particular pop star.” Instead, she “depended all of those artists that I’d used over the years were subalertedly there.”
“The singing and dancing was the fun part for me,” Scott shelp. “I permited myself to let it be organic, and set up Skye’s voice with the choreography and the costumes that were already there.”
“Smile 2” is in theaters now.
