The Last Dance’ Missteps With $52M Opening

UPDATE SATURDAY AM: Refresh for more analysis and chart The previous Venom: Let There Be Carnage drew 10 million people during opening weekend off a $90M opening, and the threequel here, Venom: The Last Dance, is pulling in on an admissions level close to have that. The numbers speak for themselves, at least at the domestic box office, and fewer moviegoers are making time for Sony/Marvel’s Venom: The Last Dance with $52M opening. These movies were never made to speak to the top of anyone’s intelligence. Anora, this is not. Venoms were always a herky, jerky Jekyl and Hyde mish-mosh earning B+ scores (good enough to fly), and this time around the threequel gets a B-. If there’s one sequel audiences are returning to tonight, it’s the second night of the World Series to see whether the New York Yankees can bounce back from that 6-3 Dodgers win last night.

It would be easy to scream Joker: Folie a Deux at Sony in this instance, but it’s not apples to oranges, it’s like apples to a chair. At a projected $180M+ global start, +5% ahead of Carnage, Last Dance is bound to course correct, and the plan is to profit. Sony didn’t willy nilly spend a near $200M on a musical Venom here, something fanboys would severely reject. Sony kept their production cost in line at $120M before P&A, very similar to the first with a co-finance partner TSG. If Sony gets faulted for anything, it’s for making more of the same old, same old in Venom, and not one-upping enough from the previous installment. More on that in a bit.

UPDATE, Friday PM: “Stay out of your car” this weekend is what’s going around Los Angeles.

The big hurdle keeping men out of cinemas is “Sportsageddon”: The L.A. Dodgers’ first face-off in 43 years with the New York Yankees in the World Series begins tonight, plus USC football and the L.A. Lakers have home games. Los Angeles was a big driver of 2021’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage with 11 of the top 20 grossing theaters, but this weekend, don’t expect so much with Sony/Marvel’s Venom: The Last Dance now doing a $21 million Friday (including last night’s previews) for an opening in the low $50Ms at 4,131 theaters. Hopefully this doesn’t drop further.

Audience scores at 77% on Rotten Tomatoes are just under that of the first Venom (80%) and Venom: Let There Be Carnage (84%).

Completely bailing out this $120M Tom Hardy production, which includes TSG as a co-financier for a third in, is foreign. International audiences are less cynical about superhero movies than stateside ones, who continue to demand that the bar be raised. Plus, there’s no World Series standing in the way overseas.

If there’s a global final box office take of $450M-$500M+, profitability can be entangled in Venom‘s web, and Sony is bullish it can get to a $180M global opening this weekend. This isn’t Joker: Folie à Deux, which did $115M worldwide off a $190M production cost before P&A and is sitting around $200M global.

Paramount’s Smile 2 is second so far this frame at 3,624 sites with $3.2M today, for a second weekend of $10.8M, -53%, with a running total of $42.1M.

Universal’s The Wild Robot won’t break down out of the top 5 with a fifth weekend of $6M, -41%, after a $1.7M Friday and running total of $110.8M at 3,422 sites.

Cineverse’s Terrifier 3 could upset the top 5 with a third weekend of $5.5M at 2,720 theaters, -41%, for a running total of $45.2M. Friday is $1.7M.

Focus Features’ wide opening of its acclaimed and awards-season chip Conclave at 1,753 locations is seeing $2.1M today, and $5.3M for the weekend, which is in between $4M-$6M projection. More on that later this weekend.

A24’s wide break of We Live in Time at 2,924 locations (+1,939 sites) is eyeing $1.5M today, a third weekend of $4.2M, which is even with its second frame’s $4.185M, for a running total of $11.1M.

FRIDAY UPDATE AFTER EXCLUSIVE: Sony/Marvel’s Venom: The Last Dance is coming in at $8.5 million in previews. There was a feeling the third Venom would be slightly higher in previews, and here it is. As we told you last night, that beats the $7.6M previews of Dwayne Johnson and DC’s Black Adam and the $7.5M of Fast X.

The projected global weekend is now at $180M, which will be 5% higher than the global start of Venom: Let There Be Carnage ($171.6 million), this despite an expected domestic drop in the mid-$60M range, the lowest of any of the Venoms.

The threequel gets 3 1/2 stars on Comscore/Screen Engine’s PostTrak, which isn’t far from the original 2018 movie and the 2021 sequel’s four stars. Parents and kids under 12 gave the movie 5 stars. Slightly more dads went last night at 53%, but moms got pulled into this Tom Hardy movie, too, at 47%.

General audiences were men 65% for Kelly Marcel’s feature directorial debut, with 18-34s at 66%. The overall Rotten Tomatoes audience score is 77%.

Meanwhile, Focus Features’ 93% certified fresh critically acclaimed Vatican thriller Conclave made $500,000 in collections at 1,500 theaters from previews that began at 2 p.m. Thursday night audiences gave the Ralph Fiennes film 3 1/2 stars on PostTrak and a 57% definite recommend. Mostly men attended last night at 62%. By the way, that’s the same amount of cash that We Live in Time made last Thursday from its second-step platform expansion. The outlook for Conclave is $4M-$6M. CAA Media Finance was the sales rep on Conclave.

A24’s wide break of We Live in Time in weekend 3 landed on PostTrak with 4 1/2 stars, 83% positive and 63% definite recommend off 61% females. In regular grosses, not including last night’s wide previews, the Andrew Garfield-Florence Pugh feature financed by Studio Canal drew an estimated $516K Thursday, -9% from Wednesday, for a $6.55M week and running total of $6.8M. The John Crowley-directed weepy romance is expected to ring up around $5M this weekend in its 2,000-theater break.

Paramount’s Smile 2 at 3,619 theaters led all movies in its first week with an estimated $31.2M; the Temple Hill production cost $28M before P&A. The horror pic led all titles in regular release yesterday with $1.4M, -21% from Wednesday.

PREVIOUSLY, Thursday PM EXCLUSIVE: Currently we hear that Sony/Marvel’s Venom: The Last Dance is eyeing around $8 million in previews tonight, maybe more by the morning. Showtimes began at 2 p.m. in the U.S. and Canada at 3,500 locations.

At that figure, there’s a path to a $65M opening, which we mentioned would rep the lowest start for the trilogy stateside after owning the third (2021’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage at $90M) and fourth (2018’s Venom) best openings for October. Yes, we expect more from superhero threequels, but this is Venom and the franchise always reaped significantly more abroad (anywhere from 60% to 75%) than domestic. Hence, the global number means more to the studio to make good on that $120M production cost before marketing spend.

Comps: 2022’s Black Adam saw $7.6M in previews before making $26.6M on its Friday and $67M for the weekend. There’s another similar comp in 2023’s Fast X, which had a $7.5M Thursday night, $28M Friday and $67M opening.

Recently, Warner Bros’ Joker: Folie à Deux posted $7M previews before falling apart to a $37.6M opening. However, that movie was sold under false pretenses to the fanboys, hence the D CinemaScore because they weren’t expecting to be knocked in the head by a musical. At least here with Last Dance, they’re getting what they paid for here in a zany, loopy Tom Hardy Venom movie.

Reviews are pretty bad for Venom: The Last Dance at 36% on Rotten Tomatoes — but they’re not the worst. That belongs to the first Venom at 30%. There was some improvement among film critics on part two at 57%. Both Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage earned B+ CinemaScores, which is healthy enough to make this also-ran antihero a tentpole.

Sony didn’t respond for comment on our industry projections tonight.

Venom: The Last Dance, directed by the franchise’s co-scribe Kelly Marcel in her behind-the-camera debut, is booked at 4,125 theaters.

Also opening this weekend is Focus Features’ Edward Berger-directed Vatican thriller Conclave and A24’s We Live in Time, which is going super wide at 2,000 theaters for its third frame.