'Venom 3' slinks to $51 million, lowest opening weekend of comic book trilogy
“Venom: The Last Dance” is No. 1 at the box office, but the comic book film fell significantly short of expectations.
“Venom: The Last Dance” is No. 1 at the box office, but the comic book film fell significantly short of expectations.
The third and final entry in Sony’s Marvel antihero series, led by Tom Hardy, opened to a muted $51 million from 4,125 North American theaters. Rival studios estimate the final weekend number will be under $50 million. Those ticket sales are far behind projections of $65 million and much lower than the prior two installments of 2018’s “Venom,” which opened to $80 million, and 2021’s “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” which opened to a then-pandemic record $90 million. Sony believes the World Series matchup between the Yankees and the Dodgers kept people at home on Saturday and Sunday, yet New York City and Los Angeles were the two biggest markets for “Venom 3.”
Despite the slow liftoff in North America, the third “Venom” is getting a boost from international audiences. The “Spider-Man” spinoff has feasted on $124 million overseas for a global start of $175 million.
“The Last Dance” cost $120 million to produce, not including worldwide marketing efforts. That’s far less than most superhero movies, like “Deadpool & Wolverine” and “Joker: Folie à Deux,” which each cost upwards of $200 million. Yet since theater owners get to keep roughly half of ticket sales, the third “Venom” needs to stick around on the big screen beyond its debut to justify that price tag. After much bigger launches, the first “Venom” powered to $856 million worldwide while “Let There Be Carnage” surpassed $500 million worldwide.
This series has never been a critical darling, and the latest installment isn’t an exception with a 37% on Rotten Tomatoes. Yet fans may be tiring of the franchise, too, as audience members bestowed the film a “B-” on CinemaScore, the lowest grade of the trilogy. Kelly Marcel, who wrote the first two films, directed the PG-13 threequel, which stars Hardy as investigative journalist Eddie Brock and his unwitting sidekick and parasite Venom, both of whom are on the run from their worlds.
Rating: 5