By Jake Coyle, Film Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --“Venom: The Last Dance” showed less bite than expected at the box office, collecting $51 million in its opening weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday, significantly down from the alien symbiote franchise’s previous entries.
Projections for the third “Venom” film from Sony Pictures had been closer to $65 million. More concerning, though, was the drop off from the first two “Venom” films. The 2018 original debuted with $80.2 million, while the 2021 follow-up, “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” opened with $90 million even as theaters were still in recovery mode during the pandemic.
“The Last Dance,” starring Tom Hardy as a journalist who shares his body with an alien entity also voiced by Hardy, could still turn a profit for Sony. Its production budget, not accounting for promotion and marketing, was about $120 million — significantly less than most comic-book films.
But “The Last Dance” is also performing better overseas. Internationally, “Venom: The Last Dance” collected $124 million over the weekend, including $46 million over five days of release in China. That’s good enough for one of the best international weekends of the year for a Hollywood release.
Still, neither reviews (36% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) nor audience scores (a franchise-low “B-” CinemaScore) have been good for the film scripted by Kelly Marcel and Hardy, and directed by Marcel.
The low weekend for “Venom: The Last Dance” also likely insures that superhero films will see their lowest-grossing year in a dozen years, not counting the pandemic year of 2020, according to David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter for Franchise Entertainment.
Following on the heels of the “Joker: Folie à Deux” flop, Gross estimates that 2024 superhero films will gross about $2.25 billion worldwide. The only upcoming entry is Marvel’s “Kraven the Hunter,” due out Dec. 13. Even with the $1.3 billion of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” the genre hasn’t, overall, been dominating the way it once did. In 2018, for example, superhero films accounted for more than $7 billion in global ticket sales.
Last week’s top film, the Paramount Pictures horror sequel “Smile 2,” dropped to second place with $9.4 million. That brings its two-week total to $83.7 million worldwide.
The weekend’s biggest success story might have been “Conclave,” the papal thriller starring Ralph Fiennes and directed by Edward Berger (“All Quiet on the Western Front”). The Focus Features release, a major Oscar contender, launched with $6.5 million in 1,753 theaters.
That put “Conclave” into third place, making it the rare adult-oriented drama to make a mark theatrically. Some 77% of ticket buyers were over the age of 35, Focus said. With a strong opening and stellar reviews, “Conclave” could continue to gather momentum both with moviegoers and Oscar voters.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. “Venom: The Last Dance,” $51 million.
2. “Smile 2,” $9.4 million.
3. “Conclave,” $6.5 million.
4. “The Wild Robot,” $6.5 million.
5. “We Live in Time,” $4.8 million.
6. “Terrifier 3,” $4.3 million.
7, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” $3.2 million.
8. “Anora,” $867,142.
9. “Piece by Piece,” $720,000.
10. “Transformers One,” $720,000.
“Conclave” Draws Crowds At The Rome Film Festival Near The Vatican
With Pope Francis a few weeks away from his 88th birthday, the plotting for his successor is well underway at the Vatican.
How timely, then, that just across town in Rome, "Conclave," a thriller filled with back-stabbing, manipulative cardinals, quick to toss morality out of the window as they promote their candidate, is a top draw at the Rome Film Festival.
This might be a little too close to home — literally and figuratively — for Pope Francis.
Austrian-Swiss director Edward Berger, who directed "All Quiet on the Western Front" (2022), adapted the film from the 2016 novel "Conclave" by Robert Harris. Berger puts an extraordinary Ralph Fiennes in the role of Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, dean of the College of Cardinals responsible for organizing the conclave.
The conclave is the centuries-old tradition in which, on the death of a pope, cardinals gather in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican to participate in rounds of voting until they elect a new pontiff. Conclave comes from the Latin "cum clave," meaning "with a key," to indicate the Cardinals are locked in until they have chosen the new leader for the world's 1.3 billion Catholics.
The whole process is conducted under the spectacular frescoed ceiling painted by Michelangelo, and his masterpiece "The Last Judgment" depicting the fate of men heading to heaven or hell covers the wall behind the altar. During the entire process, the prelates are cut off from communicating with the outside world and must live in seclusion inside the Vatican.
Conclaves have a reputation as a no-holds-barred competition as cardinals make backroom deals to elect their favorites in secret ballots.
At the end of each round of voting, the ballots are thrown in a specially constructed stove... Read More