How Fantastic Fest Has Become a Kingmaker for ‘Smile’ and Other Genre Films

As summer gave way to fall, much of the film industry’s attention turned to film festivals in Venice and Toronto, where films looked for the sort of critical acclaim that can lead to box office and awards success. But around the same time, another festival has become the same sort of launch pad for horror and sci-fi.

Fantastic Fest, which just completed its 17th edition a week ago, showcases genre films at Alamo Drafthouse’s flagship location in Austin, Texas, with offerings that range from major-studio fare to bizarre, offbeat finds from the VHS vault of the American Genre Film Archive. This year, one of the big premieres was Paramount’s “Smile,” which not only earned a solid $22.6 million opening weekend but defied even the most optimistic expectations for its second weekend, dropping just 22% for $17.6 million. The film has earned a solid $50 million domestically after 10 days on a production budget of $17 million.

In doing so, “Smile” became the 10th film to screen at Fantastic Fest and go on to a No. 1 box office opening. Other films on the list include M. Night Shyamalan’s “Split,” which premiered at the 2016 festival and went on to gross $278.5 million worldwide, becoming the first film from the director since “The Sixth Sense” in 1999 to top the charts for three consecutive weekends.

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“Fantastic Fest put ‘Smile’ on the map and really raised its profile which is what we were hoping for,” Paramount domestic distribution chief Chris Aronson told TheWrap. “It was definitely a valuable tool in our tool belt for the marketing leading up to release.”

Usually, studios don’t use film festivals in their release strategy for horror or sci-fi films for a mainstream audience. The rare exceptions tend to be spring releases that get a premiere at Austin’s other big festival, South by Southwest. Films like Jordan Peele’s “Us” and the Daniels’ “Everything Everywhere All at Once” screened there for the first time, earning rave reviews that helped build that all-important pre-release buzz.

Alamo Drafthouse and Fantastic Fest founder Tim League believes his festival has become that sort of kingmaker for genre films hitting theaters in the fall.

“We’ve built great relationships with all the studios, and sometimes we’re even in talks with them about some of these movies even before they are dated,” he said. “We positioned Fantastic Fest in late September in part because it’s a slower period for the box office, but historically it has also been a launching point for some of the best genre films of the year. We’re here on the calendar by design so that we can be that sort of a service to the studios.”

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Fantastic Fest’s rise as a high-profile premiere target for theaters began with its fifth edition in 2009, when it screened the microbudget horror classic “Paranormal Activity.” Producer Jason Blum’s breakout box office hit had been building its cult status on the festival circuit at that point, but its Fantastic Fest screening helped introduce it to a wider audience as it went on to gross $194 million against a budget of just $450,000 and spawned a plethora of sequels.

A year later, Fantastic Fest had its first major-studio world premiere with Sony’s “Zombieland,” but League believes it was Lionsgate’s “John Wick” that truly put the festival on the radar of distribution and marketing execs. In 2014, “Wick” director Chad Stahelski had just made the leap from stunt coordinator to full-blown filmmaker, and the $20 million revenge thriller was still a bit of a gamble for Lionsgate.

But the Fantastic Fest premiere for “John Wick” helped word-of-mouth spread like wildfire, with critics coming out of the screening praising it as another gem in Keanu Reeves’ career and turning the action-packed film into a tentpole series for Lionsgate — one that has actually seen grosses increase as more installments appear. (“John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum” took home $171 million domestically in 2019.) A fourth chapter is due in theaters March 24, 2023.

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“The energy, enthusiasm and social media spread that particularly came from our ‘Wick’ premiere was explosive, and I remember that it gave the film’s team a lot of confidence heading into its wide release,” League said.

With franchise horror film “Halloween Ends” coming this Friday, “Smile” might see its grosses start to tail off against heavy competition. But its presence at Fantastic Fest shows the growing value of what League’s team has created to studios, especially when they have genre films that don’t have an IP to raise interest among audiences.

Earlier this year, Jason Blum told TheWrap ahead of the release of “The Black Phone” that he was unsure whether original horror films, untethered to franchises like “Saw” or “Halloween,” could still be theatrically profitable. The answer to his question is an emphatic “Yes” as “Black Phone” grossed $89.8 million domestic and $159 million worldwide against an $18 million budget.

Where did “The Black Phone” premiere? At Fantastic Fest in 2021.

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