Weekend predictions: Smile looks to seize crown from Terrifier

Halloween season ramps up again in theaters this weekend, with Smile 2 looking to keep the horror genre firmly in control at the box office. It should do so relatively easily, even though Terrifier 3 has been enjoying a great run so far. The $2.5 million in previews on Thursday for Smile 2 isn’t spectacular, but sets the film up for $20 million or so on opening weekend.

That would be slightly better than the model predicted for Smile 2 ahead of the weekend:

The model’s prediction, at $15 million, would be a big step down from the $29 million earned on debut by the first film. That’s a reflection of the model’s continued very dim view of overall market strength at the moment. The previews point towards a higher number:

$20 million isn’t a done deal at this point, but it looks like a good bet.

The other new(-ish) film that looks likely to hit the top 10 this weekend is We Live in Time, which A24 is expanding into 955 theaters. Our wide expansion model predicts it’ll make something around $2 million…

Here’s what the model thinks that top 10 will look like.

Even with Terrifier 3 predicted to hold on well for a horror movie, The Wild Robot is favored to take second place on the chart.

Hocus Pocus, Disney’s second Halloween Season re-release after last week’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, is expected to land somewhere in the lower reaches of the top 10, and not far away from its predecessor.

The major omission from the chart is Joker: Folie à Deux, which the chart thinks will crash out of the top 10 entirely in just its third weekend. Even if it misses that fate, it looks unlikely to earn even $60 million domestically at this point.

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Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com