Venom Becomes #1 Movie In The World With Record-Breaking Opening

Eddie Brock and his alien symbiote other half have taken a beating as of late, that’s for sure.

Sony’s Venom debuted to an overwhelmingly negative response from critics, with the pic currently sitting at a measly 32% on Rotten Tomatoes. To be fair, it’s not a complete write-off – Tom Hardy’s performance is fascinating to watch, and some parts are genuinely entertaining, even if it’s for the wrong reasons – but overall, Venom is a bit of a dud and a rather underwhelming start to the studio’s grand plan for their own little Marvel universe.

Of course, the box office numbers will ultimately decide where things go from here, and thankfully, those are looking pretty good. According to Box Office Mojo, the pic slithered its way to the top of the charts this weekend, raking in $80.3 million domestically and $125.2 million overseas, which combines for a grand total of $205.2 million. Given that estimates were about $60-$70 million on home turf and $105-$110 million globally, that’s an unbelievably strong haul for the pic and has smashed the records for biggest October opening stateside and internationally.

For more, here’s the official press release from Sony:

At $205.2M globally, Columbia Pictures’ Venom is officially the #1 movie in the world and has achieved the biggest opening in October history both domestically and internationally.

Domestically, the film took in an outstanding $26.615M on Saturday, $32.750M on Friday, and we are projecting $20.665M on Sunday, raising the studio’s weekend projections to $80.030M, a true overperformance for the action thriller and beating studio and industry expectations.

Meanwhile, the studio also put forth a few interesting stats, which you can see below:

• South Korea led all markets with $15.7M and is Sony’s 2nd biggest opening of all-time behind Spider-Man: Homecoming’s $19.1mm and the biggest opening in the region of all time. The 5-day total has already surpassed the lifetimes of Captain America: The First Avenger, Justice League, Suicide Squad, and Wonder Woman.
• Russia launched with $11.7M, beating the lifetimes of Ant-Man, Captain America: The First Avenger, Justice League, and Wonder Woman.
• UK captured the #1 spot against two new openers, Johnny English Strikes Again and A Star Is Born, to gross $9.3M. The opening is bigger than Ant-Man.
• Mexico took in $7.1M, besting Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, and Logan.
• Australia delivered $6.4M, beating the openings of Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, Wonder Woman, and Logan.
• Germany debuted with $5.2M, which is bigger than of the openings of Ant-Man, Justice League, and Wonder Woman.
• Brazil opened with $5.2M, above the openings of Captain America: The First Avenger, Ant-Man, and Doctor Strange.
• Major markets still to come include France, Japan, and China (TBD)

As we mentioned above, Venom‘s intended to launch a B-class MCU featuring characters that the studio still has rights to, which is why we’re getting movies starring Morbius, Kraven the Hunter and more real soon. And while the reviews for Ruben Fleischer’s film seemed to suggest those plans might be cancelled, we imagine the numbers from this weekend are more than strong enough to justify moving forward.

Then again, it’ll be interesting to see how things progress from here. Some analysts are expecting a big drop-off next week, now that the initial wave of hype has died down. That being said, Venom‘s decent CinemaScore and now these box office numbers seem to suggest that audiences are digging it, so who knows? It might just have some legs on it and could very well continue pulling in respectable figures for the next little while.