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Movie Monday: ‘Venom: The Last Dance’ Underperforms but Still Waltzes to Win

In a slow year for superhero movies (Deadpool & Wolverine being the notable exception), a Marvel antihero showed that the genre still has a bit of sting.

Granted, that sting is relative. Venom: The Last Dance earned “just” an estimated $51 million in its North American opener. While that was five times that of its closest competitor (second place Smile 2 earned about $9.4 million), it fell short of the $65 million it was expected to gobble up. And it’s well below the stateside take of its two predecessors: The first Venom film earned $80.3 million in its opening weekend, while 2021’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage took in $90 million.

But if the latest Venom film seemed a bit soft at home, it rampaged overseas, devouring a staggering $124 million internationally. That pushes its overall, one-weekend gross to $175 million. 

As of this posting, The Wild Robot is locked in a tight contest with newcomer Conclave for third place—a battle of opposites if ever there was one. Both have earned $6.5 million. Though, for the record, Conclave is showing on half as many screens (1,753 to Robot’s 3,427).

We Live in Time finished fifth for the second straight week, banking $4.8 million.

paul-asay
Paul Asay

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

2 Responses

  1. Me and a dear (recently Catholic) friend went to see “Conclave” this afternoon, and we both enjoyed it tremendously. It was a fascinating and intriguing look at power struggles within various factions within the Catholic Church. Beautifully filmed and scored, and great performances all around, and I was impressed by the number (mostly older) people in the theater. Some Oscar nominations are definitely on the way. 9 out of 10 stars for me.

    1. Glad to hear, I’m planning on seeing that at some point, if for no other reason than because live-action PG-rated films are extremely rare these days. What was the last one? Greatest Showman?

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