Paramount has hired David Bruckner to direct “Smile 3,” handing the franchise to a new filmmaker after creator Parker Finn wrote and directed the first two films, Variety reported. Nick Antosca will write the screenplay from a framework Finn developed. Finn stays on as a producer with Temple Hill Entertainment, and Jonathan Fass is an executive producer. No release date or cast has been announced in the reports reviewed.
Bruckner arrives with a long record in horror. He moved from anthology work on “V/H/S” and “Southbound” to the 2007 Sundance film “The Signal,” then directed “The Ritual” in 2017 and “The Night House” in 2021. His 2022 reimagining of “Hellraiser” debuted on Hulu. Antosca’s credits include “Verity” and “Cape Fear.”
Finn is leaving the director’s chair because he has a new project of his own. He will direct a remake of the 1981 cult film “Possession,” with Callum Turner and Margaret Qualley, which Paramount plans to release in June 2027 under his first-look deal with the studio. Earlier reports in the trade press attributed his exit from “Smile 3” to scheduling conflicts.
The numbers explain Paramount’s interest. “Smile” opened at Fantastic Fest in 2022 and earned $217 million worldwide on a budget of about $17 million, the biggest total for an original horror film that year. Its 2024 follow-up grossed $138 million. The drop between the two films was real, but the low production cost kept the series comfortably profitable. Finn has described the franchise as open-ended, saying that later chapters could go “bigger and more off the rails,” and that he had left parts of the first film deliberately unresolved.
Bruckner has other projects waiting. He is attached to a remake of “The Blob” for Warner Bros. and an adaptation of “The Caretaker” for Universal, with Sydney Sweeney starring. How those commitments affect the “Smile 3” production calendar has not been addressed. His signing was first reported by industry scooper Daniel Richtman, according to TheWrap.
