Venomverse’s Box Office Silver Lining: It’s Big Abroad

There was plenty of opining — like the hissing of a coiled rattlesnake — when Venom: The Last Dance opened to a franchise-worst $51 million in North America over the Oct. 25-27 weekend but prospered overseas to boast a worldwide opening of $175 million against a budget of $120 million-plus. It’s easy to forget that Venom does staggering business overseas, with The Last Dance pulling off the biggest China opening ($46 million) in recent memory.

Sony’s Marvel movies get savaged by critics — outside of Spider-Man and Spider-Verse titles — with few cracking the 30 percent mark on Rotten Tomatoes. (2021’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage is the high point with a 57 percent score.) And Venom doesn’t have cultural staying power ala Christopher Nolan’s Batman films or Marvel Studio’s Avengers movies. But in an era of superhero fatigue and ultra-expensive bombs such as Marvel Studios’ The Marvels and DC’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Sony studio chief Tom Rothman’s cost-conscious strategy seems wiser than ever and has reaped millions upon millions in profits, mostly thanks to the Venom trilogy. It allows the studio to experiment with more than 900 lesser-known Marvel characters connected to Spidey and, in the latest twist, includes including giving an R-rating to the upcoming, ultra-violent action pic Kraven The Hunter, out in mid-December.

It’s a double-edged sword. “This approach to filmmaking can be lucrative and creatively rewarding when done correctly. Conversely, it can diminish brand equity, audience goodwill and kill the proverbial box office golden goose if executed poorly,” says chief Comscore box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “In the case of the live-action Spider-Man spinoffs, the results have been mixed. Unlike Venom, Morbius and most notably Madame Web was met with a bit of audience indifference.” Madame Web most certainly landed in the red at the box office, while Morbius perhaps broke even.

“The bottom line is that it comes down to the quality of the movies, the appeal of the lessor-known characters and, most importantly, marketing strategies that make clear for uninitiated moviegoers the plot, point of view and tone of the film,” the Comscore analyst adds.

Venom: The Last Dance, returning Tom Hardy in the titular role, propelled the Venom franchise past a collective $1.5 billion in worldwide ticket sales against a combined production cost of just $330 million before marketing. Those are the kind of margins that would make any studio exec smile. And the Venom series has been equally as lucrative in ancillary markets, according to one source.

“At worst, The Last Dance is a double, but most likely a triple,” the source continues.

Kraven is a different proposition, having cost more to make (some put the budget at north of $150 million). Sony had no choice because of the extra costs associated with the pandemic, the labor strikes and backlog of films waiting for post-production houses.

“Having the imprimatur of the Spider-Man brand gives any spinoff film or character huge a leg up,” says Dergarbedian. “But at the end of the day, the movie and the marketing must be absolutely spot on in taking a secondary character and make them appealing to a global audience.”

This story first appeared in the Oct. 30 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.