The new Venom film is finally in theaters, and the critics aren’t exactly singing their praises for Eddie Brock’s first standalone movie, with the pic currently holding a pitiful score of 31% on Rotten Tomatoes. But if you’re wondering if such bad buzz might kill the character’s chances for the sequel Sony so clearly desires, it seems that the comic book flick is so far faring a lot better with the general public.
At the time of writing, the Ruben Fleischer-helmed film boasts an impressive Rotten Tomatoes audience score of 88%, meaning that well over four fifths of the movie’s 8,000-plus voters said they liked it. While this score is sure to change over the course of the weekend, it seems that a lot of moviegoers so far are happy with what they’ve seen from the alien symbiote.
It turns out that an online wave of allegedly fake reviews can only do so much to dampen filmgoer enthusiasm. Of course, user scores like this aren’t immune to manipulation from overly competitive comic book fans, but what’s a lot harder to fake is box office returns, and in this field, Venom is proving to be an unequivocal success. After raking in a record-breaking $10 million on its opening night, the film is reportedly on pace to take in $57 to $65 million during its stateside opening weekend.
We’re still in early days here, but if this commercial performance continues as such, then you can imagine that Sony will have plenty of incentive to push forward with plans for their cinematic universe. And with Fleischer himself clearly game for another Venom movie, it seems that the film’s post-credits sequence may not have jumped the gun after all.
