'Venom: Let There Be Carnage' Screams $11.6M On Thursday; 2nd Best Preview Night Of The Pandemic

Sony’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage rang up a great $11.6M Thursday night from showtimes that began at 4PM yesterday at 3,500 theaters. That’s the second best we’ve seen during the pandemic after Disney/Marvel’s Black Widow which grossed $13.2M on Thursday night from shows that began at 5PM (sans Disney+ Premier for the night). Even better news: That preview haul is higher than that of the 2018 movie which did $10M off showtimes that began at 5PM. Venom went on to do a $32.5M first day and $80.2M opening weekend, which is the second best ever for the month of October.

Disney/Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings follows in ranking among big pandemic Thursday nights with $8.8M from showtimes at 6 p.m., and then Universal’s F9 which did $7.1M off 7PM showtimes.

We had previously heard that the first day advance ticket sales for Andy Serkis-directed movie were quite potent. The current Rotten Tomatoes’ review rating for Venom 2 is at 58% Rotten, which is higher than the 2018’s first installment of 30% Rotten. We’ll see how audience exits settle. They’re always high with fans on Thursday night and even out by tonight. Fans at an AMC Universal Citywalk screening Monday night went bonkers for the Tom Hardy sequel.

Sony has told the media that they’re comping the sequel to A Quiet Place Part II which did $47.5M over its 3 days of Memorial Day weekend, however, other tracking services and even major exhibitors’ own internal projections have Venom 2 over $60M. Venom 2 is already far ahead of A Quiet Place 2 with its preview night making 2.4x more than that horror film which did $4.8M.



https://deadline.com/2021/10/venom-let-there-be-carnage-opening-weekend-box-office-1234847950/