The critical reception for Venom may not be flying high but the film’s box office numbers are. Upon the film’s release, the Tom Hardy led film was projected to break the October opening weekend box-office record previously held by Gravity. 2013’s Oscar winning Gravity held the record for some time with an opening weekend gross of a little over $55 million but it looks like the iconic comic book character has taken the crown from the space flick.
Director Ruben Fleischer’s Venom has raked in $80 million in the U.S. box-office, becoming the highest grossing October debut of all time. With a budget of $100 -$116 million, the film is definitely earning its cash back not just in the States but worldwide as it now has a worldwide gross of a little over $205 million.
Its main competition, A Star Is Born starring Bradley Cooper (who also directed it) and Lady Gaga is right behind the anti-hero film with $41.2 million which is still a pretty good number. Despite Gaga fans’ efforts to “sabotage” the film’s box-office numbers, more people are seeing Venom which isn’t really a surprise cause it’s a big budget blockbuster with a familiar name attached to it. Both films also tend to favor different demographics so they’re both going to do well. Plus, the drama film has a much smaller budget of $36 million and a lot of Oscar buzz so it’s probably going to do really well anyway.
Those Venom projections a while back took into account critical reception which pointed to the film’s reviews playing a role in its success. Well, the reviews don’t really matter it seems cause it’s doing pretty damn good (Granted, it may do better with better reviews). People still seem to be having fun in the film despite its problems so this may not be the last time we see Venom.
Source: Box Office Mojo
