Venom 3's Box Office Presents A Problem For Sony's Marvel Universe

It was a pretty darn quiet weekend at the box office as most studios seemingly wanted to either A) avoid competing with the election or B) wait for greener postures offered by the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday window. Either way, it created a situation where Sony's "Venom: The Last Dance" was easily able to top the charts again with a relatively solid $26.1 million estimated second weekend haul. That's good for the studio in the short run. In the long run? It presents Sony with a quandary that they're probably going to need to address sooner rather than later.

As of this writing, director Kelly Marcel's "The Last Dance" has pulled in $90 million domestically to go with an outsized $227 million internationally for a running total of $317 million worldwide. After two weekends in theaters, that's not bad for a movie with a reasonable $120 million budget. "Reasonable" is a relative term in this arena, since comic book movies regularly cost $200 million these days. Sony was responsible, though, which will allow this film to profit even though it's going to make far less than 2018's "Venom" ($856 million worldwide) and less than 2021's "Venom: Let There Be Carnage."

This is an odd situation. On one hand, "Venom 3" was viewed as a relative disappointment after it opened to just $51 million domestically. That was far less than the previous two entries in the franchise, as audiences seemed to have grown a little tired of Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock and the bromance he's developed with the Venom symbiote. There is no future for the franchise beyond this film, which was billed as the end of the trilogy.

At the same time, this still represents the second-biggest opening for a superhero movie in 2024, beyond only "Deadpool & Wolverine" ($211 million). We're still talking about a movie that is almost certainly going to make $400 million worldwide, something only eight movies have done in 2024 thus far. This is also going to be one of the cheapest movies to cross that threshold when it does happen.

In the short run, Sony gets a hit movie that will make money, even if it's only because international audiences are turning out in much larger numbers than those in North America. In the long run, the studio now needs to try and figure out what to do with the "Spider-Man" franchise beyond the Tom Holland films, which still exist firmly in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. "Venom" and these other spin-offs occupy a different universe, and that universe has seemingly all but run its course.

"Morbius" bombed in 2022. "Madame Web" bombed badly earlier this year as well, suggesting other such future spin-offs should probably be scrapped. Outside of the animated "Spider-Verse" films, "Venom" is the only spin-off Sony has tried that's worked. For the most part, if Spider-Man isn't directly involved, the studio has a hard time turning Spidey's supporting characters into main characters.

As of right now, the only other live-action spin-off Sony has on the books is the R-rated, bloody "Kraven the Hunter," which hits theaters next month. On the animated side, the studio also has "Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse," which remains without a release date. The point is, Sony seems to know these spin-offs aren't working and they seem to have hit the pause button for the time being. That's good! However, the box office returns posted by "The Last Dance" complicate matters.

Are these numbers good enough to encourage Sony to try something similar with different characters? Do they try to spin-off other characters in the "Venom" universe without Hardy involved? Do they try for a reboot of "Venom" in a few years while riding the highs of Holland's "Spider-Man" films? Are they going to try and get that long-gestating "Sinister Six" movie going again? There are questions with no good answers. All of these options are risky. All of them are profit-motivated, rather than creatively driven — but that's the point.

Sony stands to make a lot of money when this stuff works. Rest assured, they're going to continue to try and exploit the Marvel rights they control. Unfortunately, this trilogy-capper's relative success has complicated how best to approach that exploitation.

"Venom: The Last Dance" is in theaters now.