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Venom Expected To Break Gravity’s October Box Office Record
New box office projections have the Venom solo movie breaking Gravity's October record, proving that Venom doesn't need Spider-Man to be a hit. Despite his status as a fan-favorite member of Spider-Man's rogues' gallery, and of the Marvel Comics universe at large, Venom hasn't exactly had a great go of it at the movies. While it's true that he's only been in one live-action film to date, that film was 2007's widely disliked Spider-Man 3, which featured a performance by Topher Grace as Eddie Brock that wasn't exactly celebrated by fans.
Next month, Sony has the opportunity to correct that mistake via its Venom solo movie starring Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock. While some fans still have misgivings about a Venom origin story that was altered to exclude Spider-Man's involvement, the recent trailers and marketing have impressed a lot of people, and helped Sony get the hype train rolling for their attempt at kicking off a cinematic universe about Spider-Man-related characters who aren't themselves Spider-Man. Peter Parker is of course currently a resident of the MCU, played by Tom Holland, at least when he hasn't been turned to dust by Thanos.
While prior box office projections suggested that Venom would manage to break the all-time record for a domestic box office opening in the month of October, newly released projections confirm that Sony's antihero/supervillain solo movie will indeed accomplish that feat. According to Deadline, Venom will earn between $60 and $70 million during its domestic opening weekend, knocking off previous record holder Gravity, which opened to $55.7 million.
Venom is the first big comic book-based movie of 2018 to open after the summer blockbuster season, and there's big pressure on it to send Hollywood into the rest of the year with a bang. It's important to note though that Venom's projections might dip a bit, depending on how reviews turn out. Reviews don't usually do much damage to a film's earnings, especially a big blockbuster, but really bad critical takes can indeed succeed in knocking a few million off an opening weekend. For example, see last year's Justice League, which saw early projections for a $100 million-plus debut revised downward just a few days before release, after it achieved only a 40 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes.
With Venom looking to become one with the box office, it'll be interesting to see how it stacks up to the eventual totals of the other two major comic book-based releases still to come in 2018. DC's Aquaman solo movie and Sony's animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse are both set to arrive in December, and both have potential to make big bucks. Sony likely wouldn't care if Spider-Verse outperformed Venom, as either way, the profits go in their pocket. However, the studio might be put off in Aquaman makes too big a splash, especially after all the recent turmoil surrounding the DCEU. For now though, Venom can feel free to sit back and enjoy his coming time on top.
Venom (2018) release date: Oct 05, 2018
