'Venom' Eats Up the Weekend Box Office
by EG
Sony's Marvel Comics movie Venom was expected to win the weekend, but it outperformed even the most optimistic projections on its way to the weekly win. The second-place movie, Bradley Cooper's A Star is Born, did better than expected, too. Read on for details.
Once again proving a movie can do heroic business any month of the year, Sony's comic book movie Venom devoured a massive $80 million from 4,250 theaters in its domestic opening, easily the best showing ever for an October title.
Overseas, Venom, starring Tom Hardy as the Marvel antihero, soared to $125.2 million from 58 markets for a global bow of $205.2 million, also an October best. South Korea turned in $16.3 million, followed by Russia with a stellar $13.6 million.
In a second victory, Warner Bros.' critical darling A Star Is Born likewise came in ahead of expectations, collecting $42.6 million domestically from 3,686 cinemas. Offshore, the music-infused romantic drama started off with a more modest $14 million from its first 31 territories for a worldwide launch of $56.6 million. The U.K. led with $5.3 million.
The combined power of the two very different movies drove total North American revenue to an all-time high of roughly $174 million for the month of October. And, until now, the top October opening had belonged to Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity, which blasted off with $55.7 million in 2013, not adjusted for inflation.
Venom, fueled by fanboys and an ethnically diverse audience, as well as younger moviegoers, impressed in fending off withering reviews (its Rotten Tomatoes score is 31 percent, compared to 91 percent for A Star Is Born). On top of making October history, it nabbed the seventh-best launch of the year so far upon besting fellow superhero pic Ant-Man and the Wasp, which opened to $75 million this summer.
The $100 million movie is an enormous victory for Sony's film studio, led by Tom Rothman, as it tries to build a stable of superhero pics beyond the marquee Spider-Man movies. Directed by Ruben Fleischer, Venom — also part monster pic — co-stars Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed, Scott Haze and Reid Scott. Nearly half the audience was under the age of 25, while as much as 66 percent of ticket buyers were male. Those showing up gave Venom high marks, according to PostTrak, in addition to a B+ CinemaScore.
"One of the great things here is that there isn't another superhero film [Aquaman] until Christmas," says Adrian Smith, Sony's domestic distribution chief. "The movie plays great and audiences love it."
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
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