The third installment of Sony’s Venom franchise, Venom: The Last Dance, massively underperformed with just a $51 million domestic opening weekend.

A screenshot from Venom: The Last Dance (2024), Sony Pictures

According to The-Numbers, the film grossed just $51 million domestically, but added $124 million internationally for a global gross of $175 million.

For comparison, the first Venom film had an opening weekend of $80.2 million back in 2018. The second film, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which released as theaters were coming out of their massively crippling Covid shut downs grossed $90 million domestically.

A screenshot from Venom: The Last Dance (2024), Sony Pictures

In fact, early box office projections from Box Office Theory noted Venom: The Last Dance would gross between $87 million and $107 million domestically. Those projections were radically downgraded heading into the weekend with Shawn Robbins at Box Office Theory noting the film would only gross between $48 million and $59 million domestically.

He explained why, “Venom: The Last Dance has not quite matched up to long-lead expectations as social growth and pre-sales in sample markets lag well behind its 2021 predecessor, Let There Be Carnage, and more recent comparable films.”

He also shared his own speculation that casual audience sentiment no longer views comic book films favorably anymore.

A screenshot from Venom: The Last Dance (2024), Sony Pictures

Box office analyst OMB Reviews described Venom: The Last Dance’s domestic box office as a “flop.”

He said, “Venom 3 [had] the absolute worst opening in the entire history of the franchise missing the mark of the previous two films by a whopping 30%. I mean we’re talking about a massive drop off in the amount of money being made.”

He also notes that while the film has already grossed $175 million globally, most of that international box office is from China and that makes the film’s bar of whether or not it will break even ” a lot higher” especially given that Hollywood studios only receive “25% of the returns of there.” In comparison, other studios get around a 40% take in other international markets and a 55% take domestically.

Given this, OMB Reviews declares, “That is why Venom 3 is no looking very well as far as the future prospects. I do not think the film will make its money back.” However, he does hedge, “But, hey, it is still quite early at this point in time and so anything could potentially happen.”

A screenshot from Venom: The Last Dance (2024), Sony Pictures

While looking deeper into the film’s box office, OMB Reviews also noted that the film’s opening weekend ticket sales were massively below estimations for the first two films. He shared that the first film sold around 8.8 million tickets in its opening weekend while the sequel sold 8.6 million. In contrast, Venom: The Last Dance only sold 3.9 million. That’s a decline of around 55%.

Later in his analysis, OMB Reviews noted that Venom: The Last Dance would need “to make around $300 million to break even.” However, given a significant portion of its revenue is coming from China ($45 million), he noted that the film will likely have “to make between $350 and $400+ million to break even.”

He does note this is possible, “It’s definitely on the table, it’s in the cards.”

A screenshot from Venom: The Last Dance (2024), Sony Pictures

What do you make of Venom: The Last Dance’s opening weekend box office performance?