Will There Be A Smile 3? Here's How The Sequel Plants The Seeds

This article contains major spoilers for "Smile 2."

There are many cultural antecedents to the horror film. Everything from fairy tales to classic literature to campfire stories and urban legends have made their way into horror cinema, both literally and figuratively. Although horror films usually involve one or several survivors (even if — perhaps especially if — that survivor is the killer themselves), their stories aren't as predictably continued as the protagonists of other genres. Where a "hero" character like Sherlock Holmes or Wonder Woman can find themselves facing a new case or challenge during their next adventure, the Final Girls (and sometimes Guys) of horror don't always make a return appearance, and that's if there's a Final Girl left standing at all. For the "Smile" films, the latter aspect is certainly in play. The series is now two entries deep, and with them, writer/director Parker Finn has established a pattern for the franchise: when it comes to facing the Smile Entity, there are no survivors.

With both "Smile" and this month's "Smile 2," Finn has also kept the focus of each movie on their respective protagonists, Rose (Sosie Bacon) in the first film and Skye (Naomi Scott) in the second. Each movie is largely a character study of each respective woman, how they came into the Entity's crosshairs via a lifetime of both enduring and perpetuating trauma and how they attempt to fight off their inevitable fates. As a matter of fact, with the exception of a handful of supporting characters, no one else in the films are even aware that there's a supernatural threat lurking about. However, the final scene of "Smile 2" seems to indicate that's all about to change, as the entity murders Skye (with its usual modus operandi, making it appear that she's killed herself) in front of hundreds of concert attendees. Granted, Finn hasn't seemed too interested in suffusing the "Smile" series with a lot of lore, preferring to keep its Monstrosity and the lore behind it eerily ambiguous. Still, a potential "Smile 3" could end up changing the game of the franchise in a big way, almost by necessity thanks to that (literally) jaw-dropping ending of "Smile 2."

Despite the ending of "Smile 2" involving seemingly thousands of people becoming infected with the Smile Entity rather than just one, it's possible that Finn could keep a "Smile 3" just as singularly focused as the first two films are. After all, neither the first nor second "Smile" has featured a significant lore dump regarding the entity, and all anyone knows is that it has traveled via a chain infection from victim to victim. So, despite Skye's death being witnessed by all those people, the "rules" of the entity may mean that it can only infect one of those witnesses and not all of them. We also can't be too sure of objective reality in these movies, given their subjective nature and the perception pranks the Entity loves to pull; there's a possibility that the Entity only made Skye think she was being killed on stage during her concert. Perhaps she never made it out of the freezer of the abandoned Pizza Hut that she had been left in by the mysterious Morris (Peter Jacobson), one of only two still-living characters (that we know of) who has any clue about the Entity's existence (the other being Robert Talley, played by Rob Morgan, who is incarcerated for the murder that allowed him to escape the Entity's clutches), and that too wasn't just the Entity messing with her mind.

Even if we're to take the ending of "Smile 2" at face value and assume that everyone in the arena has been infected, it doesn't necessarily mean that "Smile 3" would ratchet the story up to pandemic or apocalyptic levels. It also doesn't necessarily mean that more information about the entity would have to be revealed, for according to an interview Finn gave Den of Geek in 2022, the filmmaker would seemingly rather keep its origins and true nature as mysterious as possible:

"Certainly, I've got theories and ideas behind this thing. But what I really love is its elusive nature ... Rose almost feels like she's the butt of a giant, really mean-spirited cosmic joke. That felt relatable and frightening, versus somebody conjuring some spell out of a book from the 1400s or something like that."

Given this, it's entirely possible that a "Smile 3" would keep things relegated to a single character or maybe just a few characters, even if a large amount of the world ends up becoming infected with the Entity. In this way, it would be following the trajectory of the "Final Destination" franchise, putting the brakes on the series' concept before it gets too out of control, with the possibility that things could go wild again later, like in "Final Destination 5."

However, let's also keep in mind how much Finn is influenced by J-Horror in both "Smile" films. If we take another horror franchise as an example, in this case, "The Ring" (both Japanese and American versions), "Smile 3" could go in the same direction that 1998's "Spiral" and 2017's "Rings" did, which is to take the concept of a viral evil spirit and send it into chaotic, brazen new territory. It feels like there are clues to this direction as a viable option throughout "Smile 2." For one thing, the opening sequence involves a bout of bad luck descending on Joel (Kyle Gallner), the sole survivor of the first film, as he attempts to pass on the curse to some known criminals. Not only does Joel inadvertently pass the curse onto an innocent bystander, but his quest is interrupted by the arrival of several gangsters. Is this the curse just forcing him to have bad luck, or is it that and the Entity attempting to put into position several hosts as opposed to just one?

If the latter is indeed the Entity's goal, then the ending of the film can be seen as its ultimate victory, the infection of Skye allowing it to use her celebrity to reach out and infect hundreds of new hosts. So, if "Smile 3" begins from this point, it's possible that the scope of the series could expand in a pretty major way; no longer will characters infected with the entity have to discover that what they're experiencing is a real threat, as so many other people will be suffering from the same thing, too. And while a "Smile: Apocalypse" idea might seem perhaps too outré for a franchise that thus far has been very intimate and insular, it does continue Finn's thematic interests very nicely. After all, haven't we all suffered through at least one global trauma recently in the form of a pandemic? And, like the protagonists of both "Smile" films, haven't we collectively been told to essentially ignore its existence, to bury our fears and feelings deep inside ourselves and our societal norms, until the thing we tried to forget leaps back out to get us?

There's another option for "Smile 3" that is definitely the most unfavorable one, which is where there is no "Smile 3." Perhaps "Smile 2" doesn't do as well to warrant its making, and/or Finn becomes too preoccupied with his remake of "Possession" to get around to doing it. But the fact is that the finale of "Smile 2" is far too deliciously pregnant with possibility to let things end there. I suppose that, until we know the fate of the franchise for sure, we'll just have to grin and bear it.

"Smile 2" is in theaters everywhere.