Two debuting films, a comedy-drama by Christian Bale and David O. Russell and an animated/live-action hybrid were no match to Smile, the horror flick which smiled its way to stay on top at the North American charts.

The feature directing debut of Parker Finn, who only had two short films to his credit before his box office splash, earned a robust $17.6 million in its second week, significantly more than analysts’ predictions of $13 million to $14 million.

The week two earnings of the film about a therapist who experiences terrifying occurrences, which debuted with $22 million, were considered the lowest sophomore drop of any horror release in the post-COVID era.

Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, based on the popular children’s book series, starring Javier Bardem and Constance Wu and with the titular character voiced by Shawn Mendes, could not bump Smile from its number one perch.

Collecting $11.5 million, considerably lower than the forecast of 15 million, Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile settled for second place on its debut.

Also failing to bow in the first place was Amsterdam, which ended up in third with $6.5 million, way short of the estimated projection of $8 million to $10 million.

Despite its star-studded cast – Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Chris Rock, Anya Taylor-Joy, Zoe Saldaña, Mike Myers, Michael Shannon, Taylor Swift, Rami Malek, and Robert De Niro – and O. Russell as writer-director, Amsterdam premiered to lackluster box office performance.

Viola Davis’ The Woman King held strongly with $5.3 million, enough to put the historical epic about the Agojie, an all-female warrior unit in West Africa in the 17^th to 19^th centuries, in fourth place. After four weeks, the Gina Prince-Bythewood action spectacle has picked up $54.1 million.

Olivia Wilde’s controversial Don’t Worry Darling stayed in the magic five with $3.47 million. The 1950s-set drama-thriller, featuring Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Chris Pine, KiKi Layne, Gemma Chan, and Wilde herself, has earned $38.45 million after three weeks.

Making up the rest of the top ten were, in order, the re-release of James Cameron’s Avatar, $2.6 million; Barbarian, $2.18 million; Billy Eichner’s Bros, $2.15 million; Ponniyin Selvan: Part One, the Indian Tamil-language epic period action drama with Vikram and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, $894,000; and Terrifier 2, the sequel to the 2016 original and features the return of Art the Clown, $825,000.

After 20 weeks, Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick is finally out of North America’s top ten charts. The phenomenal sequel racked up staggering worldwide ticket sales of $1.47 billion.

Overseas, the news was also enough to make Paramount Pictures grin. Smile, which was reportedly made with a production budget of $17 million, picked up $17.5 million in more than 60 territories. The film that was originally planned to go direct to streaming has drawn $40 million so far internationally and now boasts of global revenues of almost $90 million.

Gaining momentum mostly based on word of mouth, Smile performed solidly in such countries as Brazil, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Australia, and France.

George Clooney and Julia Roberts’ own ticket back to box office clout, Ticket to Paradise, added $10.6 million to its cumulative overseas gross of $60.6 million.

Don’t Worry Darling, which opened at the top in Australia, netted $6.1 million in almost 70 markets. The Woman King, on the other hand, drew $10 million for a worldwide total of $64.1 million.