Venom 3 Projected to Tank with All-Time Low in Opening Weekend

Venom 3 Projected to Tank with All-Time Low in Opening Weekend

Movieguide® Contributor

The outlook of the third movie in the Venom franchise, VENOM: THE LAST DANCE, doesn’t look too good.

“As Venom: The Last Dance inches closer to its release date, its box office projections continue to worsen,” CBR reported Oct. 15. “The Sony/Marvel threequel, while still hotly-anticipated, is no longer predicted to break the record for best opening in the franchise.”

The movie is expected to bring in $70 million in its opening weekend, Oct. 25. Just a few weeks ago, it was on track to rake in between $80-$120m.

“The change in box office tracking also comes with an unfortunate franchise record reversal. Under its previous tracking, The Last Dance was set to possibly surpass Venom: Let There Be Carnage’s domestic start of $90 million to take the crown for best opening weekend in the franchise,” CBR reported. “However, with the movie now only set to earn $70 million, that’s lower than both Let There Be Carnage and the original Venom movie ($80.2M), meaning that The Last Dance could end up setting the record for the worst opening weekend yet for the Venom series.”

The last Venom movie, LET THERE BE CARNAGE, was marred by heavy violence and language. Movieguide®’s review reads:

In VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE, Eddie Brock gets a career opportunity to interview infamous criminal Cletus Kasady. In doing so, Eddie and his alien counterpart, Venom, uncover where Cletus hid the bodies of his murder victims. This results in Cletus getting a death sentence. Just before his scheduled death, Eddie comes to interview Cletus for the final time. However, they get in an altercation. This leads to Cletus biting Eddie, ingesting his blood, which creates another alien monster called Carnage. After escaping from prison, Cletus gets Carnage to help his girlfriend escape her high-security mental institution. They decide to exact revenge on the people who’ve harmed them.

VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE has strong character development, great direction, stunning visual effects, and engaging performances. It also has a strong moral worldview with implied and overt positive Christian content. The movie promotes marriage, light overcoming darkness and doing the right thing. Also, the climactic battle takes place in a church. MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution, however, because of lots of strong, intense action violence, some immoral and borderline behavior, and excessive foul language.

The third movie also has excessive language and violence with bloody scenes. But that kind of content is clearly not what sells tickets. People want to see entertaining movies with positive elements that they can bring family and friends to see. Films like the PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN movies, THOR: RAGNAROK and JUSTICE LEAGUE all did fantastically well at the box office because they were absent of excessive obscenities and violence and contained some wholesome themes.

Screen Rant reported, “Ragnarok went on to earn more at the box office than either of the previous Thor films, thanks in large part to the new elements and change in tone. The marketing, too, leaned heavily on the film’s playfulness, which made it more appealing to a wider audience.” The movie became the MCU’s third best-reviewed movie ever.

Unfortunately, the Thor franchise fell from its podium when it introduced THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER. This was due to the movie’s heavy obscenities, inappropriate and perverse themes, and violence. Thus, appealing to only a very narrow audience.

VENOM: THE LAST DANCE is also taking that route to a narrow audience, which will result in less-than-desired ticket sales. Its flop would nearly guarantee the franchise will nix any notion of future movies, staying true to the “last dance” part of its new movie’s title.