“Venom: Let There Be Carnage” Had The Biggest Box Office Opening Of The Pandemic
Patty Jenkins must be absolutely fuming since we know she hated releasing Wonder Woman 1984 on HBO Max and in theaters on the same day. Because Venom: Let There Be Carnage is killing it at the box office. Venom 2 brought in $90.1 million at the domestic box office this weekend, giving it the biggest opening of the pandemic and the biggest opening of 2021, so far. I’m sure that the people at Sony were so excited that they just started shooting hot, black ooze all over the place.
Venom 2 stars Tom Hardy, Woody Harrelson, and Michelle Williams and is about Eddie Brock (Tom) dealing with the aftermath of getting infected with an alien lifeform hungry for eating people called Venom. The second film introduces serial killer, Cletus Kasady (Woody), who also gets infected and creates carnage. I mean, it’s in the name of the movie. The film has been getting better reviews than the first one.
Deadline says that Sony’s Marvel pic beat out Disney’s Marvel offerings this year, outperforming Black Widow‘s debut of $80.8 million which came out in theatres and on VOD at the same time this past June, as well as Shang-Chi‘s theater-only opening last month of $71.4 million. Venom 2 had a 12% increase in ticket sales from the first Venom which came out back in 2018 and opened to $80.2 million. This is the second-best opening ever for the month of October, just being Joker which debuted at $96.2 million in 2019. On Saturday the movie made $31.6M, which was down 15% from the Friday and Thursday preview which brought in $37.29M. Sunday projections were for $21.2M.
If Venom 2’s numbers drop next week, Tom Hardy can’t sue the way that Scarlett Johansson sued over Black Widow coming out on streaming the same day as its theatrical release. Because Venom 2 isn’t available for streaming yet. What’s funnier is that Venom 2 was pushed up to an October 1st release after ads promoted an October 15 release. But after the success of Shang-Chi and the Legend of Ten Rings during the Labor Day weekend, Sony changed their minds.
Sony President, Motion Pictures Group Josh Greenstein, said how happy they all are to be making so much money that people went to see the movie:
“For us, Venom: Let There Be Carnage absolutely validates our exclusive theatrical window strategy. If you look at the history of theatrical, the obituaries have been written many times, and they’ve always been wrong. We had confidence in the theatrical experience, confidence in our big valuable IP, and took full advantage and had the patience to weather all of this. That strategy is paying off, which we’re happy about. It’s a nice validation of the theatrical strategy.”
However, Venom 2 was not the best performing movie in the world this weekend. The new James Bond movie, No Time To Die, was released overseas and has made over $119 million in 54 countries. Here’s a breakdown of this weekend’s US box office, and look at that Dear Evan Flopsen is still on the list! via Box Office Mojo:
Venom: Let There Be Carnage – $90,100,000
The Addams Family 2 – $18,007,00
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings – $6,037,000
The Many Saints of Newark – $5,000,000
Dear Evan Hansen – $2,450,000
Free Guy – $2,278,000
Candyman – $1,230,000
Jungle Cruise – $680,000
Well damn, congrats to Venom on all this money, I guess. See what happens when the Little Monsters are too busy to try to tank your opening? Good thing it didn’t open against House of Gucci!
Pic: Sony Pictures Releasing