‘Smile 3’ Taps ‘Hellraiser’ Director David Bruckner Amid Parker Finn’s Absence
Paramount is giving horror fans something to smile about with a third installment in Parker Finn‘s Smile franchise.
On Wednesday, the studio announced David Bruckner (Hellraiser, The Night House) will helm the next film, which is penned by Nick Antosca (Cape Fear, Brand New Cherry Flavor), as Finn is busy directing Paramount’s Possession remake.
Despite Finn’s absence after writing and directing the first two films, he developed and pitched the framework for the trilogy-completing film, on which he serves as a producer with Temple Hill. Jonathan Fass serves as executive producer.
In Smile, Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) runs from a smiling supernatural entity that haunts its victims before ultimately driving them crazy. The 2024 sequel starred Naomi Scott as pop star Skye Riley, who inherits the entity.
The first Smile film became the top-grossing original horror of 2022. Smile 2 pushed the franchise’s global gross past $350M.
Variety was first to break the news of Bruckner’s involvement.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.