Hellraiser reviver David Bruckner to bring the grins with Smile 3

This is per Variety, which reports that Paramount has hired Hellraiser reviver David Bruckner to tackle the third Smile film. (Finn, meanwhile, will stay on as a producer on the movie, and also contributed a “framework” to the movie—which, given how potentially apocalyptic things got at the end of Smile 2, feels like it could be even more horrific than everything that’s come before.)

Bruckner is something of a low-key horror veteran at this point, having contributed anthology chapters to the original V/H/S/, and tossed his film The Ritual on Netflix’s big pile of Originals back in 2017, before getting his hands on the Lament Configuration for Hellraiser in 2022. Released directly to Hulu in the United States, the movie got pretty decent reviews (especially when graded on the spiky, miserable curve of the various Hellraiser sequels that have crawled out of the pit over the years), but so far hasn’t spawned a second outing for new head Cenobite Jamie Clayton. And until Hollywood starts pining for more Pinhead, we guess Bruckner’s free to ply his grisly trade elsewhere, in this case by keeping Smile warm while Finn’s busy.

Writing duties on Smile 3 are being handled by Nick Antosca, who most recently popped up in theaters with Verity, and on TV as the creator of Apple TV’s Cape Fear.