The latest entry in the Smile horror franchise is changing genre, becoming a grisly sports story following Smile 2‘s disturbing take on the entertainment industry, with superstar Skye Riley played by Naomi Scott.
The next entry, Any Given Smile, was just confirmed by Entertainment Weekly, and will take place in the world of professional football. The new story is set during the 1995 American Arena League football championship, following a quarterback caught up in sports betting and a sports journalist investigating a string of deaths.
As the Entity attempts to spread its influence to an entire arena of sports fans, money, trauma and ambition will aid its progress, with seeming reference to CTW (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) in the story’s themes.
Any Given Smile is a new horror comic from Stephanie Williams (Wonder Woman) and Pablo Collar (Marvel’s Voices: Pride) – a five-issue series that begins this September from IDW Dark. The story follows backup quarterback Dupree, who is attempting to make his name playing for the Sharks while coping with sizeable gambling debts. Williams tells Entertainment Weekly:
Because that universe is often about people who are a little bit broken or just have things going on, football players almost always have some type of drama, some type of backstory that is sometimes a little unsavory. And then also…sports gambling. Very big. Didn’t know that would happen after our pitch, but it just all aligned. So this was the perfect chance for me to get my other fandoms and obsessions into a work.
You are at the highest level of your profession. All this pressure on these athletes that are paid all of this money, and sometimes that’s not enough. Money does not solve everything for everyone, and especially if you have unresolved trauma, it might make it worse. For one of our characters, it absolutely does. So I wanted to lean into that.
Variant covers for the issue focus on sports and gambling imagery, with a football’s stitching and a rip in a baize card table becoming dark ‘smiles,’ signalling the Smile Entity’s malignant presence.
This is a developing story, more will be added shortly…