Smile tops the box office with $22 million, moviegoers frown at Bros

Billy Eichner's rom-com couldn't beat out director Parker Finn's horror film on the first weekend of spooky season.

Billy Eichner's rom-com Bros couldn't best director Parker Finn's horror film Smile during the inaugural weekend of spooky season at the box office.

The horror film, centered on a psychiatrist (Sosie Bacon) who begins to encounter frightening occurrences after a patient takes her own life in front of her, debuted at No. 1 at the domestic box office with $22 million, according to Comscore. Finn's feature directorial debut is one of the better horror openings of the year, out-scaring Barbarian ($10 million) and The Invitation ($7 million).

"I wanted to set out to make something that was deeply frightening and feels like a sustained panic attack from start to finish," Finn recently told EW. "We're working with really heady themes and motifs and pairing them with these extraordinary circumstances. I really wanted to ground the story, the drama side of things, so [the audience] can really care about the character and go with her on that journey when it all really really starts to ramp up."

Smile
Sosie Bacon in 'Smile'. Paramount Pictures

That involved a viral, frightening marketing campaign. Ahead of the film's release, Paramount, the studio behind the film, placed performers — employing the widest and creepiest smiles they could muster — at baseball games. "This is something that had been discussed a little while back and we were all kind of like crossing our fingers that somebody might notice," the director said.

At the global box office, Smile earned a formidable $36.5 million but ultimately could not be beat by director Rao Xiaozhi's Chinese drama Home Coming, which opened at No. 1 worldwide with $58.3 million. As for Bros, the LGBTQ rom-com starring Eichner and Luke Macfarlane opened in fourth place at the domestic box office with $4.8 million. The title couldn't top Don't Worry Darling or The Woman King, which remained in the top five at No. 2 and 3, respectively.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQIeBB9XMe8. Bros | Official Trailer. University Pictures
Billy Eichner in 'Bros'. University Pictures

Olivia Wilde's thriller earned an additional $7.3 million during its second week in theaters, bringing the film's total to $32.8 million. Gina Prince-Bythewood's drama about the Agojie, the all-female warriors who protected the African kingdom of Dahomey in the 1800s, earned an additional $7 million during its third week, which brings the total to $46.7 million. The re-release of Avatar rounded out the top five, earning $4.6 million more on week two. James Cameron's sci-fi epic has made a total of $18.5 million so far.

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