Venom Secures Date For Chinese Release Later This Year

After breaking box office records in its first few days, the new Venom movie maintained its top spot in the world ranking on its second weekend. Now, the symbiote has his eyes set on China, where Ruben Fleischer’s film is scheduled to premiere on November 9th.

The Chinese release can be credited in part to the efforts of Chinese Internet investment conglomerate Tencent, which launched an extensive marketing campaign around the feature. The flick’s opening arrives on the heals of Shane Black’s Predator, another sci-fi action film with horror elements that’ll be hitting theaters in the region on October 26th.

So far, Venom has reportedly brought in an impressive $378 million worldwide and $142 million domestically, with estimates placing the film’s total global gross on track for more than $550 million. If things go as well as expected in China, the movie could even overtake the likes of Logan ($619 million), Ant-Man and the Wasp ($622 million) and Justice League ($657.9 million). That’s right, the Spidey-free flick about the Spider-Man villain could end up bringing in more of an audience than the Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman film with the much bigger budget.

At this rate, it’s hard to imagine a sequel not getting go-ahead from Sony, with the movie’s post-credits scene even teasing the next installment’s villain. And given the respectable CinemaScore of B+ received by the series’ first entry, it’s clear that there’s an audience out there who’d be willing to pay for a second round of Eddie Brock.

News of Venom’s commercial success won’t exactly be music to the ears of the many critics who panned it, but from a money-making perspective, it seems that Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters is getting off to a strong start.