At the beginning of the week, Sony were very conservatively estimating that Venom: Let There Be Carnage was tracking for an opening weekend haul in line with the $47 million brought in by A Quiet Place Part II at the end of May, but most analysts were predicting a much more robust number.
The second outing for Tom Hardy’s symbiotic alter ego scored the second highest-grossing Thursday of the pandemic after bringing in over $11 million, and the action-packed comic book adaptation is now in line for a massive first frame, as per Deadline. Let There Be Carnage took home an estimated $37 million on Friday, meaning that it’s currently on course for at least $71 million by the end of play on Sunday.
However, some industry insiders think it could even soar as high as $81 million, which would be good enough for both the best pandemic-era opening and the third-highest October debut ever regardless of circumstance, behind only Joker and the first Venom. We knew Let There Be Carnage was going to be a hit, but it’s looking like it could be an absolute monster.
That’s good news for both Sony and the industry at large, especially with No Time to Die and Dune on the way, but it once again reaffirms the superhero genre as the most popular and bankable form of cinema, with Venom: Let There Be Carnage set to follow in the lucrative footsteps of Black Widow and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.