Smile 2 Director Parker Finn Pushed Film to Its Absolute Extreme

Director Parker Finn beat the odds with the first “Smile” film.

Shot for $17 million, the 2022 horror turned into a box office behemoth grossing over $200 million worldwide. So while shooting “Smile 2,” Finn took the same approach, pushing his budget and schedule to the limits in a process he described as fitting “a 10-gallon movie into a five-gallon bucket.”

“We had a few more resources, more toys to play with. But I’m always trying to punch above my budget and above what the schedule affords,” Finn said. “[I tried] to push everything to its absolute extreme. So in a way, it felt the same or almost more stressful because of what we bit off in this one.”

Joined by Naomi Scott and the rest of the “Smile 2” leading cast, Finn walked a black carpet outside Paramount Studios in Los Angeles Tuesday night to celebrate the film’s premiere.

“Smile 2” follows global pop sensation Skye Riley (Scott) as becomes the latest host of the sinister smiling spirit just before departing on her world tour. She then must survive on the road without losing her sanity to the mysterious force.

While planning for the sequel, Finn threw out many ideas within “the first month” of brainstorming, deeming if “they’re coming to me this quickly, they’re too obvious.” Then one night, in a sudden flash of inspiration, the idea for Skye Riley came to him.

“There was an evening that this idea about this character, Skye Riley, this pop star, hit me like a bolt of lightning. I got obsessed with it,” Finn said. “I love that this world is so unexpected for a horror film. This glitzy, glammy, shiny world of a pop star felt like such a collision with ‘Smile.’ And I’d really love to see where that could go.”

Scott had only a few weeks to practice the Skye Riley songs and choreography before shooting began. While figuring out her sound and look, Scott didn’t pull from one source of inspiration for fear of being too “derivative of a particular pop star.” Instead, she “trusted all of those artists that I’d consumed over the years were subconsciously there.”

“The singing and dancing was the fun part for me,” Scott said. “I allowed myself to let it be organic, and found Skye’s voice with the choreography and the costumes that were already there.”

“Smile 2” is in theaters now.