‘Smile 2’ Director Breaks Down the Wild Ending, Potential Sequels and Drawing Inspiration From Pop Stars Like Taylor Swift
SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for “Smile 2,” now in theaters.
Parker Finn, the writer and director of 2022’s horror hit “Smile” and the just-released “Smile 2,” has taken one of the most recognizable horror ideas in recent years and blown it up even bigger for the sequel. In this chapter, troubled pop star Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) begins to question her reality as she is haunted by increasingly troubling and violent images. Finn spoke with Variety about making a movie about a music superstar, the haunting ending and what future sequels might look like.
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How did you come up with the idea for “Smile 2”? It’s such a drastically different story than “Smile.”
I wanted to see if I could catch audiences off guard with what we would do for the sequel. I wrote and directed that first film to exist in its own right. I had no agenda for a sequel at that point, and I think sometimes they get made for the wrong reasons, or cynical reasons. If I was going to ask audiences to give me their time again, I was going to try to offer something unexpected and fresh. That first month I was thinking about ideas, anything that came to me I ended up throwing out, because I thought, “It’s coming too quickly. It’s too obvious of a place to go.”
I needed to be able to hang this story on a character I could invest in thematically and emotionally, that was going to offer something new to this story, this world. I was hit by this bolt of lightning with this idea for this character of Skye Riley, this mega pop star. It felt like a gigantic swing that certainly nobody would have guessed, and it was such an intriguing world to me: This idea of somebody so famous and public-facing, who’s always expected to be performing this persona, and has to greet the world with a smile despite whatever might be going on behind the scenes.
I was looking at some of these demigod women we have elevated: What’s the real human being there? You know, Taylor Swift can’t be Taylor Swift all the time. It felt like such an interesting place to start. Plus, I didn’t want to set it in dark, dingy basements or spidery addicts or anything like that. This world of a pop star is glamorous, it’s glitzy, it’s shiny, it should be fun. I thought, “Can I present that world authentically, and yet tonally make it feel quite frigid and disquieting? Unsettling and very isolating and lonely?” That felt powerful to me as a place to start.
It was reported that you got an $11 million budget bump compared to the first film, but “Smile 2” feels even more epic in scope than that amount allows for. How were you able to create such a decadent glimpse into this pop star world while still helming a modestly budgeted film?
One of the biggest challenges of the film was, “How are we going to pull this off?” When I went and pitched it to Paramount, I think they were gobsmacked at the swing, first of all. But the next question was, “Well, how are you gonna pull this off?” They got behind me and supported me, which was incredible. It was important to me to build credibility with this pop star and her world, so it was something we took very seriously. I didn’t want it to be something that felt tacked on, or was happening in the periphery. It was part and parcel of the story: This is her life, this is her world. I thought it was such an interesting experience to bring an audience into that.
A couple of things about how we managed that — first of all, I brought the same creative team back from the first film. They are all incredible artists, but also we’ve become close friends and collaborators and sort of have this shorthand. It’s a weird thing to say about a studio horror film sequel, but this was genuinely a passion project for all of us. We knew we were going to pour a 10-gallon movie into a 5-gallon bucket. So it became about, “How can we very cleverly use the resources that we do have?” It’s all about being incredibly specific, and having a very strong plan going in. I’m sort of an obsessive prepper, as far as wanting to be able to wrap my arms around the movie. We knew we were going to walk this razor wire, but we’re really pleased with how we pulled it off.
It’s quick, but at one point it sounds like one of the characters says, “This is gonna ruin the tour.” Was that an intentional reference to a certain real-life pop star who recently got in trouble?
We made that joke a lot on set. The line isn’t exactly that, but I’ve already seen the memes happening, and I love that people picked up on that.
Going into spoiler territory, this movie has such a wild ending. Do you think that everyone at the final Skye Riley show is now infected with The Smile?
I think you’re asking the right question.
In this movie, we learn a bit more about the backstory of the demon. If you film more chapters, will you go even deeper into the lore?
I certainly have all of these thoughts and considerations around The Smiler, and it helps inform me how to utilize it in the film. I love the fact that because it’s designed to get into the cracks of a character’s brain and start feasting on all the worst stuff inside of their head, it’s incredibly specific, unique and personal to everyone it’s interacting with. Anything that we learned about it in the first film, we might realize, “Oh, that was just one version of it interacting with [“Smile” protagonist] Rose, and that’s for Skye.” Yes, there is this throughline, but it has some new tricks up its sleeves and things that we didn’t know about it.
I oftentimes feel less is more with things like mythology in horror films, especially if it comes to supernatural stuff. First of all, I’m way more interested in the character story. I love the stuff that goes bump in the night, but I want to use that supernatural push to explore the human horror, the internal psychological stuff. But also I find that sometimes when you begin to over-explain it — you give it a name and origin — all the audience begins to defang it. I think the fear of the unknown is much more frightening, but I also think it’s worth doling out breadcrumbs to bring an audience along. They’re little pieces of candy to eat along the way, which I love — but if I’m answering a question or closing a door, I want to make sure I’m opening two more.
Have you thought about what a third movie might look like?
I’m excited to deliver this one to the world first. I think there are a lot of exciting roads it could go down, but for me, from 10,000 feet up, looking at what “Smile” is, I would want to make sure that if there were more stories to tell, that again we are doing things in an unexpected fashion, continuing to jump rails the way that we did from “Smile” to “Smile 2.” I love this idea that each thing could become more insane and bonkers and unhinged than the last one, and at a certain point we’d say, “How in the world is this where we’ve gone with ‘Smile’?” To me, that feels really exciting. I’d want to make sure that it is doing something that feels worthwhile every time we might come back.
You’re attached to write and direct a remake of the 1981 cult classic “Possession.” What can you tease about your vision for that movie?
It’s still early days, for sure. I’m incredibly excited about it. “Possession” is one of my favorite films of all time. Here’s what I will say: The intention is to do something that is both honoring and homaging the original, but it’s a spiritual successor that I’m trying to be in dialogue with the first film. I’m hoping to have all of the ferocity and teeth and sort of mania of the original. We are not doing something that will be safe or sanitized with it. It will be for people who love the original. That’s who I’m making this film for.
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