Venom: The Last Dance is dragging its feet at the box office, underperforming compared to previous entries in the franchise.
Released on 25 October, the third and supposedly last instalment in the Marvel franchise is getting off to a limp start.
The Last Dance sees the return of Tom Hardy reprising his role as investigative journalist Eddie Brock who is host to the long-tongued alien of the film’s title.
The film has raked in $22m (£16.9m) from 4,131 domestic theatres in the US across Friday (25 October) and previews.
That figure is well below the first-day debuts of the earlier entries. Venom in 2018 tallied $32m (£24.69m) and 2021’s Let There Be Carnage with $37m (£28.55m).
As reported by Variety, this means the film is likely to fall behind its projections, which had forecast an opening weekend of approximately $65m (£50.15m).
While The Last Dance marks a definite downturn for the Hardy-led Marvel franchise, it is still on track for the biggest opening weekend since Beetlejuice Beetlejuice in September.
Sony, Variety said, will be looking towards international markets to bolster the earnings for The Last Dance as has been the case for the previous instalments.
Both Venom and Let There Be Carnage performed well overseas, with the first raking in a colossal $642m (£495m) outside of North America. The second instalment still nabbed an impressive $293m (£226m) overseas.
The film studio, as reported by Variety, is currently expecting that the film will still slightly outperform the global opening of Let There Be Carnage – despite the disappointing domestic performance as of now.
The news comes amid poor reviews for the film. Currently, The Last Dance has a 36 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes – though it is still early days and that could very well change as more people see it at the cinema.
That said, poor reviews have never stopped Venom films from performing well at the box office. The first entry has a measly 30 per cent rating, with the second pulling in a better, though still paltry, score of 57 per cent.
According to the audience survey firm Cinemascore, however, fans are definitely less impressed with this latest instalment. The Last Dance earned only a B- grade, while both previous films received a B+.
CinemaScore measures a film’s appeal by polling early reactions to major releases.
