Venom: Let There Be Carnage has the best opening of the pandemic.
Well, no one expected this. Venom: Let There Be Carnage, like many movies, has bounced around the release calendar, eventually landing in late October. Then, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings opened huge over Labor Day, and suddenly, Sony was eager to get its own Marvel movie into theaters as quickly as possible, moving the release date up to October 1. While the film was widely expected to do quite well, no one imagined it would open to $90 million, nicely obliterating Black Widow's previous pandemic record of $80.4 million and even topping the first Venom's $80.3 million opening three years ago. Venom should be the 7th movie of the pandemic era to top $100 million by this weekend, and barring an epic collapse, should become the second pandemic movie to hit the $200 million mark. It could even be in position to outgross Shang-Chi, though unlike that film, which was able to run roughshod over the otherwise weak September lineup, Venom will be facing a murderer's row of blockbusters starting this weekend.
As Venom comes within $10 million of a 9-digit opening, it stands to wonder which will be the first film to do so since Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker pre-pandemic. No Time to Die, Eternals or Spider-Man: No Way Home seem like likely candidates, but if they can't get it done, then we might have to wait until March, when The Batman and Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness arrive, for a new $100 million opening.
Opening so-so in second is The Addams Family 2, with $17.3 million, or only a little more than half of the first one's $30.3 million arrival two years ago. The Addams would likely have benefited from opening a week or two earlier, since its likely that at least some of the film's potential audience was seeing Venom instead. The good news for the altogether ooky clan is that they have two more weekends with the family movie crowd all to itself before Ron's Gone Wrong arrives on the 22nd.
After four weeks on top, the aforementioned Shang-Chi fell to third, with $6.1 million. That was more than enough for the film to top $200 million, the first movie since Bad Boys For Life to do so. Its total sits at $206.2 million.
Opening rather dismally in fourth is The Many Saints of Newark. To be fair, it was always an open question as to how a prequel to a show that ended 14 years ago with no returning cast members, save for Michael Imperioli, who narrated, would do. But, like most WB movies this year, putting it on HBO Max likely whacked it, especially since there was a pretty good chance that most of the film's target audience (i.e. Sopranos fans) already subscribed to the service. It could only come up with $4.7 million, an amount Tony in his prime would probably have sneered at.
Hopes that word of mouth would save Dear Evan Hanson were dashed as the film fell 2/3rds in its second weekend, to $2.5 million. The flop musical has a ten-day gross of $11.8 million, with fans of the movie hoping it will be found eventually on streaming and DVD.
After 7 weeks in the Top 3, Free Guy is finally returning to Earth, as the action comedy took in $2.3 million for a total of $117.6 million. It's not quite Game Over, but it does seem likely that the film is on its last quarter. Another long runner, Candyman, also looks to be heading for the exit, as it took in $1.3 million for a total of $58.9 million. Jungle Cruise, which has been sailing longer than either Free Guy or Candyman, is also wrapping up, with a total gross of $116.1 million.
Debuting on the lowest rungs of the Top 10, each with less than a million, are the Indian comedy Chal Mera Putt 3 and the Christian documentary The Jesus Music. While neither is a huge success, they can both take pride in outgrossing weird French horror film Titane, despite that film opening in more theaters.
Venom may have had a monster opening, but its reign at #1 is likely to be short. That's because this weekend brings the long-awaited No Time to Die, with Daniel Craig's swan song as James Bond. Given that Spectre came out nearly six years ago, it's been a long wait, made even longer by the pandemic (this was, famously, the first Western movie to flee, moving off its original April 2020 date in early March, roughly a week before things truly began to snowball in the United States). The film has debuted huge in the UK, and it will be interesting to see how its opening compares to Spectre, which took in $70.4 million its first weekend, or Skyfall, which arrived to $88.6 million back in 2012. Even if it falls short of those numbers, its likely that 007 will be 001 this weekend. Also arriving in more limited release is the Icelandic horror film Lamb, which will be playing in enough theaters for a possible Top 10 finish. Just how big will Bond be? We'll find out next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment