Smile 3 is in the works, but with a major creative change that might make you frown.

As confirmed by Variety, Parker Finn – the writer-director of the first two Smile movies – will only be onboard as producer this time around. Instead, David Bruckner (2022's Hellraiser) will direct, with Cape Fear showrunner Nick Antosca penning the script.

Little is known about Smile 3 just yet, though Finn reportedly "pitched the framework" for the trilogy-capper.

With how Smile 2 ended, it wouldn't be a surprise to see the third movie massively increase in scale, especially given the sheer amount of people who – in theory – should be hosting the curse now.

The first two Smile movies revolve around a grin-inducing curse that can only be broken by murdering someone in front of a witness. 2022's Smile was a breakout hit, grossing over $200 million at the box office. Its follow-up, starring Naomi Scott, was less successful than its predecessor but fans praised the premise of popstar Skye Riley's comeback tour gone very, very wrong.

Finn, meanwhile, will be forging another path in the horror space with 2027's Possession remake, starring new James Bond hopeful Callum Turner and Margaret Qualley.

Elsewhere in the horror space, 2027 is shaping up to be a killer year. Mike Flanagan's The Exorcist: Martyrs is on the way, as are A Quiet Place Part 3, The Conjuring: First Communion, a new Paranormal Activity, and a Blair Witch Project reboot. Now that really gives us something to smile about.

For more, we have a complete guide to new horror movies – if you dare.

Phantom Blade Zero is finally out, and has already gotten off to a massive start as one of the most-played Steam games of the year as far as concurrent players are concerned.

S-Game's long-awaited action RPG has already landed a Metacritic score that places it as one of the top games of 2026, with the game also up for Ultimate Game of the Year at The Golden Joystick Awards 2026. On top of that, Alinea Analytics predicted that Phantom Blade Zero had already sold over one million copies across PC and PS5 before it had even launched, positioning it for a huge release day. And, as one of the last major releases before the GTA 6 tidal wave arrives, it's looking like it's already hit big.

Over on Steam, at the time of writing (via SteamDB), Phantom Blade Zero has peaked at 595,711 concurrent players today as it launched around 10 hours ago. This is a number that has gone up multiple times during the process of writing this, but at the very least, well over half a million players have booted up S-Game's Wuxia action game.

This number places it behind only Palworld 1.0 as the biggest launch of 2026 so far. But perhaps more impressively, it's already in the top 20 biggest games ever on Steam as far as concurrent player peaks go, beating out the likes of Hollow Knight: Silksong, Slay the Spire 2, and Terraria.

And from covering Steam peaks over the years, typically the way things go is that a game will hit its biggest ever peak on the Sunday after it releases, so there's still a chance for Phantom Blade Zero to become one of the biggest Steam releases of all-time – well, even more so than it already is.

If you're one of the over 500k players hopping in today, check out our Phantom Blade Zero tips and guides on how to find the cell key, Flesh Lily, and all the answers for the Gentle Thief's questions.