Smile 3 - Will It Ever Happen?

The "Smile" movies introduced horror fans to a new monster under the bed: a malevolent grin. How scary can a smile be? Well, it is incredibly creepy and sinister in nature, spreading between people as someone witnesses a death — typically someone who is possessed and dies by suicide. The concept makes for some horrifying and disturbing moments as those under the entity's trance do it with the uncanny smile on their face, even in death.

With the critical and audience success of "Smile," which boasts a 79% on Rotten Tomatoes, and "Smile 2," which has a critic score of 86%, fans want to know if a "Smile 3" is in the works. The ending of the second film presented several directions a sequel could take, leaving the universe wide open with plenty of stories to tell. So, will "Smile 3" ever happen? We've compiled all the information so far on what the director has said, what a new movie could be about, and what could happen if the "Smile" franchise returns for a third installment.

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"Smile 3" hasn't officially been confirmed by Paramount Pictures or the creator, writer, and director of the first two movies, Parker Finn. However, there was a huge sign that another installment in the series is a go less than two months after the release of "Smile 2."

World of Reel posted in December 2024 that Production Weekly, a digital service that compiles production news, included "Smile 3" in their December 5 issue. The entry for the film says it's going into production in 2025, but does not give any specifics on the plot or what fans can expect from the third movie. World of Reel does say Parker Finn would be returning as the writer and director of the film, which may have also been listed in the Production Weekly entry. A search of its website shows "Smile 3" has only appeared in the December 5 issue as of the time of writing, and hasn't been mentioned since then. 

Parker Finn has been upfront about his thoughts on "Smile 3." While promoting "Smile 2," he discussed how he's only scratched the surface with the first two films, and future installments give him the option to up the ante. "There are some ideas that I think are very exciting. I think it's really fun to imagine a lineage of 'Smile' movies where each one becomes more off the rails than the previous one," he said to GamesRadar's SFX magazine. 

"I love this idea that potential future iterations of 'Smile' could go bigger and more off the rails and even crazier and more unhinged," the director told The Hollywood Reporter around the same time. "But, for me, what's important about 'Smile' is that there is a real human, character-driven, intimate nature to the storytelling. So even if the world gets much larger, I'd want to make sure that the stories we're telling inside of it are still quite impactful on a human level."

In an interview with Collider in February 2025, Finn confirmed what he'd like to do with "Smile 3." "I think that if there were more directions for 'Smile' to go in I'd want to make sure that it stays very thoughtful and sort of thematic and emotionally grounded with characters because I think that's what makes the 'Smile' movies work and I want to make sure that it continues to be fresh and unexpected, so we'll have to see." This is similar to his original statement to The Hollywood Reporter and helps give fans the reassurance that "Smile 3" will be anything but a typical sequel. 

At the end of "Smile," the entity passes from Rose (Sosie Bacon) to Joel (Kyle Gallner), who then passes it to Lewis (Lukas Gage) at the beginning of "Smile 2." Lewis and Skye (Naomi Scott) are connected because he sells her pain killers for her injured back. With Skye's death in front of thousands  rather than a single individual at the end of the second film, it creates an opportunity for the monster to spread among several people at once, presenting the chance to dive into an entirely different story than the first two movies of the franchise.

Rather than follow one person, "Smile 3" could follow multiple individuals experiencing the haunting as they try to understand what they witnessed at Skye's final concert. There's a chance they meet up, maybe due to an online forum where people share how they're trying to heal after the events of the concert, and team up to figure out how to defeat the monster once and for all. The concept presents a great opportunity to continue to explore how trauma affects people by seeing how group trauma impacts the entity and its ability to thrive. While it could give it more power, being split between multiple people could also spread it too thin, creating a perfect scenario to kill the entity.

There's a strong chance that the star of "Smile 3" is someone who was at Skye's concert at the end of "Smile 2." Because so many people watched Skye die at the hands of the monster, there are plenty of individuals it can latch on to next, from young teens to adults. Based on the previous films, it's likely the protagonist will be an adult, but there is a chance "Smile 3" follows teens instead, providing a different perspective. Rose and Skye handle the monster incredibly differently, and so would a teenager.

There are minimal connections between the protagonists of "Smile" and "Smile 2," but depending on how the story is approached, there could be stronger ties between the leads of "Smile 2" and "Smile 3." From being a fan of the singer to one of her relatives even, the opportunities are endless. It could follow multiple people, spanning several individuals at the concert. Either way, it's likely there will be new stars for "Smile 3," based on the new set of characters introduced between "Smile" and "Smile 2."