Superhero films losing grip on theatres

NEW YORK (AP):

Venom: The Last Dance showed less bite than expected at the box office, collecting $51 million in its opening weekend, according to studio estimates on Sunday, significantly down from the alien symbiote franchise’s previous entries.

Projections for the third Venom film from Sony Pictures had been closer to $65 million. More concerning, though, was the drop-off from the first two Venom films. The 2018 original debuted with $80.2 million, while the 2021 follow-up opened with $90 million, even as theatres were still in recovery mode during the pandemic.

Venom: The Last Dance starring Tom Hardy as a journalist who shares his body with an alien entity also voiced by Hardy, could still turn a profit for Sony. Its production budget was about $120 million – significantly less than most comic-book films.

Internationally, the film collected $124 million over the weekend, including $46 million over five days of release in China. That’s good enough for one of the best international weekends of the year for a Hollywood release.

Still, neither reviews (36 per cent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) nor audience scores (a franchise-low ‘B-’ CinemaScore) have been good for the film scripted by Kelly Marcel and Hardy, and directed by Marcel.

The low weekend also likely insures that superhero films will see their lowest-grossing year in a dozen years, according to film consultant David A. Gross.

Following on the heels of the Joker: Folie à Deux flop, Gross estimates that 2024 superhero films will gross about $2.25 billion worldwide. The only upcoming entry is Marvel’s Kraven the Hunter, due out on December 13. Even with the $1.3 billion of Deadpool & Wolverine, the genre hasn’t, overall, been dominating the way it once did. In 2018, for example, superhero films accounted for more than $7 billion in global ticket sales.

Last week’s top film, the Paramount Pictures horror sequel Smile 2, dropped to second place with $9.4 million. That brings its two-week total to $83.7 million worldwide.

The weekend’s biggest success story might have been Conclave, the papal thriller starring Ralph Fiennes and directed by Edward Berger ( All Quiet on the Western Front). The Focus Features release, a major Oscar contender, launched with $6.5 million in 1,753 theatres. That put Conclave into third place, making it the rare adult-oriented drama to make a mark theatrically.