Venom: The Last Dance hasn't found anywhere near the same level of success as Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage, though Sony Pictures is likely happy enough with the threequel after delivering back-to-back SSU flops with Morbius and Madame Web (according to early tracking, Kraven the Hunter could be next).
Despite facing stiff competition from Wicked and Gladiator II both at home and overseas, Venom: The Last Dance reached $456.4 million at the worldwide box office this weekend to become the tenth highest-grossing movie of 2024.
It pushes Beetlejuice Beetlejuice off the list, and sits behind three Chinese movies along with Kung Fu Panda 4 ($549.2 million), Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire ($571.8 million), Dune: Part Two ($714.4 million), Despicable Me 4 ($968.6 million), Deadpool & Wolverine ($1.34 billion) and Inside Out 2 ($1.7 billion).
It's a good result, albeit one that shows theaters are still struggling to bounce back after the pandemic.
Doing little to help matters on that front, of course, is a box office flop like Red One. Despite being a Christmas movie led by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Chris Evans, and J.K. Simmons, it debuted to a dismal $32.1 million last weekend after costing upwards of $200 million to produce.
Having earned $13.2 million during its second weekend, Red One's domestic haul has risen to $52.9 million. However, that also marks a steep -59% drop, matching 2022's Black Adam (which was the worst second-weekend dip in Johnson's career). So, Red One has matched a very unfavourable record and once again called into question how much of a box office draw The Rock is.
On the plus side, he is expected to bounce back over Thanksgiving with the release of Disney Animation's Moana 2.
While we're still waiting on final numbers, Wicked is believed to have opened in North America with $114 million compared to Gladiator II's $55.5 million. The former is also massively exceeding expectations overseas and shaping up to be one of the year's biggest hits.
"With ‘Red One,’ our intention was to make a movie that you can enjoy on the biggest screen possible," Johnson said earlier this month in comments that later went viral. "Legitimately the biggest screens possible are Imax. I was midway through shooting 'Red One' and I had an opportunity to see 'Oppenheimer.' I watched in the IMAX theater where Christopher Nolan watches and screens his movies."
"Him and Emma [Thomas], his wife. I even asked to let me sit where Chris sits. They said, 'Chris sits here.' I watch 'Oppenheimer.' It was amazing, but I was thinking: 'Holy shit. 'Red One' on this screen and with this technology could be game over,'" he continued. "I remember texting [director Jake Kasdan] a picture of my bare chest and a picture of the screen and we realized how cool [IMAX] would be."
What did you watch in theaters this weekend? Let us know in the comments section below.