Venom 3 Dances to a Decent Opening Weekend With Overseas Help

This weekend marks the end of an era and closes out the story of Sony’s Venom. Since 2018, Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock has been a weirdo doing goofy-ass slapstick in ways that have upset some but delighted others, and Venom: The Last Dance promised to be a last ride of some kind for the duo before another iteration of Eddie (or another character entirely) puts on the alien skin suit. And audiences have responded to it with a bit of an “ehhhhhh…”

Per the Hollywood Reporter, the gooey threequel is looking at $51 million domestic box office at time of writing, well below the initial $65 projections placed upon it pre-release. For comparison, the first movie started at $80.2 million in North America (a then-record for October movies in 2018), and 2021’s Let There Be Carnage began at $90 million, impressive back then because of the pandemic. The international audience has come in clutch; it’s apparently doing very well outside North America, and expected to pull in $124 million for a reported global total of $175 million.

Last Dance opened to negative reviews and spotty word of mouth, and it probably doesn’t help some folks are getting their Halloween party on. Still, it took the top spot for the weekend, happily knocking Smile 2 down to second place; the horror sequel made another $10.3 million domestically and $12.5 million overseas, bringing its global total to $83.7 million. And speaking of sequels to scary movies, Variety reports Terrifier 3 is pegged to make another $4.5 million and end the weekend at $44 million, triple the combined grosses of its predecessors.

Venom basically has next weekend all to himself, as far as big genre movies are concerned. Things truly kick in on week two with A24’s religious horror flick Heretic and the post-apocalyptic flick Elevation on November 8. The following weekends see the action Christmas flick Red One (November 15), Gladiator II and Wicked: Part I (November 22), and Moana 2 (November 27).

Got thoughts on Venom: The Last Dance? Let us know in the comments below.

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