1. Venom: The Last Dance
Sony Pictures | Week 2
$26.1M Domestic Weekend | $90M Domestic Cume
$317.1M Global Cume
Things are looking a little brighter for Sony’s enclave of the Marvel Universe as Venom: The Last Dance posted a solid -49% drop in its second frame to take in $26.1M from 4,131 locations for a PSA of $6,318. That’s enough to maintain the top spot during a relatively quiet pre-election weekend -when many are participating in early voting and/or recuperating from Halloween festivities- and is also the lowest second frame drop for a Venom installment.
Let’s check out the estimated 3-Day…
- Friday – $6.65M
- Saturday – $11.68M
- Sunday – $7.76M
The Last Dance‘s second frame hold is better than Black Adam (-59%, $27.4M), which opened this same weekend in 2022. For comparison, the first Venom had a -56% drop during its second frame to take $35M after a surprise $80.2M debut. The next installment, 2021’s Let There Be Carnage, had a much larger -65% drop in week 2 at $31.7M, although it had a larger opening at $90M after a drought of fanboy movies during the pandemic. The first two movies both wound up with equal $213.5M takes, a number The Last Dance will struggle to replicate at this pace.
We said on Wednesday that -based on the lower-end $51.1M opening- it was possible The Last Dance was looking at a drop comparable to Fox’s 2019 franchise-killer Dark Phoenix, especially when matching that X-Men film’s “B-” CinemaScore. However, it went the other way, rocketing past even our highest projections.
Overseas the story gets even brighter, as the movie passed the $300M mark globally with $317.1M, 4% ahead of Venom: Let There Be Carnage at the same time in release. Keep in mind The Last Dance has the China advantage over Carnage, with another $14.5M earned in the middle kingdom for a current $70.6M market cume, second only to North America. Foreign territories snagged $68.4M overall, with other top market cumes including Mexico ($13.4M), the UK ($11.9M), and South Korea ($9.4M). It also opened in several new markets like France ($6.5M) and Japan ($3.8M).
2. Here
Sony Pictures | NEW
$5M Domestic Opening Weekend
Director Robert Zemeckis’ experimental narrative drama Here has struck out, opening at #5 with $5M on 2,647 for a PSA of $1,889. That’s in the middle of our forecast range, which was already low to begin with for a film with this budget (reportedly in the $50M arena) and caliber of talent. It was financed by Miramax but released via Sony’s Tri-Star Pictures label. That’s also lower than the second weekend of Focus Features’ Conclave (targeted at the same over-age 45 demo), which only dropped -20% to take #4 with $5.3M.
Here’s how the estimated 3-Day looked on the domestic drama shot entirely from one vantage point and co-starring Robin Wright…
- Friday – $1.9M
- Saturday – $1.8M
- Sunday – $1.25
It’s not star Tom Hanks’ lowest opening by a longshot, with recent pictures like 2016’s A Hologram for the King opening to $1.1M and COVID-era release News of the World debuting to $2.25M. It’s also not the lowest contemporary opening for Zemeckis, whose The Walk opened to $1.5M in 2015 and 2018’s Welcome to Marwen bowed to $2.3M. It is certainly the lowest theatrical opening for a Hanks/Zemeckis joint venture compared to Forrest Gump ($24.4M), Cast Away ($28.8M), and The Polar Express ($23.3M). Their previous collab on Disney’s 2022 live-action Pinocchio was not released in theaters.
Hanks can still carry his weight at the box office (i.e. A Man Called Otto, Elvis), but Zemeckis hasn’t had a hit in over a decade… since 2012’s Flight ($93.7M domestic, $160.5 WW). In fact, 64% of those who bought tickets did so for Hanks specifically. In that sense, the star will likely take less of this hit than the director, especially with poor critical and audience reception. Rotten Tomatoes critical is 36% while audience score is 57% “rotten,” CinemaScore was a “B-” and PostTrak was 3 stars or 69%.
For a challenging sell like Here a great deal was riding on positive word-of-mouth, and with only 8% of those polled by PostTrak rating the movie as “good” that is not going to happen. With little youth appeal this was always going to be an uphill climb, as younger demos aren’t as interested in Baby Boomer stories, hence 66% of the audience being 45 or older. The audience skewed largely female at 58%, with the AMC at Disney Springs in Orlando being the top grossing venue.
Here’s how demographics looked…
- 72% Caucasian
- 14% Latino and Hispanic
- 6% Black
- 5% Asian
Other Notable Performances
Horror titles Smile 2 (#3) and Terrifier 3 (#7) both got a Halloween boost with $6.8M and $3.2M, respectively, a drop in the neighborhood of only -30% for each. They also each passed the $50M threshold at $52.6M/$50.5M, making them the 4th and 5th highest-grossing genre entries this year behind A Quiet Place: Day One, Alien Romulus, and Longlegs.
Samuel Goldwyn opened the latest Liam Neeson crime movie Absolution to $1,425,105 million on 1,537 screens for a $927 PSA, enough to place at #10 on the charts. That’s not quite as bad (though not much better) as Samuel Goldwyn and Neeson’s In the Land of Saints and Sinners, which debuted to $1,034,133 million on 896 screens back in March of this year… although that one had a slightly better PSA at $1,154.
Released by Searchlight, buddy comedy A Real Pain starring Jesse Eisenberg and
Kieran Culkin took in $240K on 4 screens for a PSA of $60,000. That’s not too far off from the 2024 record $90K PSA Anora had a few weeks ago during its limited opening. With a 93% RT score, A Real Pain looks to have a real advantage for the specialty market going into the fall season, and could be up for awards consideration if Searchlight can platform this right.
Warner Bros. made the decision not to report box office on Juror #2, which opened on a reported 35 screens for an Oscar-qualifying run, and according to Deadline made around $90K on Friday. However, the studio did report international earnings of $5M on 1,348 screens. The reasons for not reporting domestic may vary, but it certainly had nothing to do with critical, which is at 92% on RT. It marks the latest (and possibly final) directorial effort from 94-year old legend Clint Eastwood.
Sunday’s Studio Weekend Estimates | Weekend 44 – 2024
Total 3-Day Domestic Estimates: $66,166,987M | (+4.6% vs 2023)
| Title | Weekend Estimate | % Change | Locations | Location Change | PSA | Domestic Total | Week | Distributor |
| Venom: The Last Dance | $26,100,000 | -49% | 4,131 | n/c | $6,318 | $90,047,000 | 2 | Sony Pictures |
| The Wild Robot | $7,550,000 | 11% | 3,231 | -196 | $2,337 | $121,476,000 | 6 | Universal |
| Smile 2 | $6,800,000 | -29% | 3,235 | -389 | $2,102 | $52,687,000 | 3 | Paramount Pi… |
| Conclave | $5,300,000 | -20% | 1,796 | 43 | $2,951 | $15,222,000 | 2 | Focus Features |
| Here | $5,000,000 | 2,647 | $1,889 | $5,000,000 | 1 | Sony Pictures | ||
| We Live in Time | $3,474,299 | -28% | 2,964 | n/c | $1,172 | $17,694,022 | 4 | A24 |
| Terrifier 3 | $3,227,684 | -32% | 2,357 | -363 | $1,369 | $50,541,750 | 4 | Cineverse |
| Beetlejuice Beetlejuice | $2,085,000 | -33% | 2,251 | -623 | $926 | $292,099,000 | 9 | Warner Bros. |
| Anora | $1,897,500 | 109% | 253 | 219 | $7,500 | $3,946,632 | 3 | Neon |
| Absolution | $1,425,105 | 1,537 | $927 | $1,425,105 | 1 | Samuel Goldw… | ||
| Godzilla Minus One | $510,000 | 1,365 | $374 | $56,928,793 | 49 | Toho Interna… | ||
| The Substance | $476,237 | -24% | 339 | -85 | $1,405 | $15,444,274 | 7 | MUBI |
| Lost On A Mountain In Maine | $380,000 | 630 | $603 | $380,000 | 1 | Blue Fox Ent… | ||
| Transformers One | $365,000 | -51% | 654 | -768 | $558 | $58,566,000 | 7 | Paramount Pi… |
| Piece by Piece | $322,000 | -57% | 519 | -779 | $620 | $9,458,000 | 4 | Focus Features |
| White Bird: A Wonder Story | $300,000 | 125% | 952 | 698 | $315 | $4,620,979 | 5 | Lionsgate |
| A Real Pain | $240,000 | 4 | $60,000 | $240,000 | 1 | Searchlight … | ||
| Saturday Night | $235,000 | -56% | 453 | -698 | $519 | $9,280,000 | 6 | Sony Pictures |
| Luther: Never Too Much | $122,028 | 9 | $13,559 | $122,028 | 1 | Giant Pictures | ||
| The Nightmare Before Christmas | $73,000 | -85% | 135 | -515 | $541 | $93,692,193 | 1,621 | Walt Disney |
| Memoir of a Snail | $70,250 | 8% | 24 | 19 | $2,927 | $145,091 | 2 | IFC Films |
| Speak No Evil | $64,000 | -64% | 147 | -454.00 | $435 | $36,909,000 | 8 | Universal |
| Deadpool & Wolverine | $59,000 | -56% | 100 | -200.00 | $590 | $636,739,277 | 15 | Walt Disney |
| My Hero Academia the Movie: You’re Next | $17,000 | -77% | 45 | -110.00 | $378 | $5,033,502 | 4 | Toho Interna… |
| The Sacrifice | $14,210 | 39% | 6 | $5 | $2,368 | $104,490 | 522 | Orion Pictures |
| Dahomey | $13,230 | -49% | $9 | $7 | $1,470 | $52,524 | 2 | MUBI |
| Am I Racist? | $9,600 | -16% | $13 | -$23 | $738 | $12,308,067 | 8 | SDG Releasing |
| Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat | $9,076 | $1 | $9,076 | $9,076 | 1 | Kino Lorber | ||
| Hocus Pocus | $9,000 | -98% | $50 | -1,545 | $180 | $50,732,815 | 1,634 | Walt Disney |
| The Fall | $8,672 | -80% | 8 | -20 | $1,084 | $2,560,313 | 861 | Roadside Att… |
| The Front Room | $5,129 | -25% | 11 | -6 | $466 | $3,608,982 | 9 | A24 |
| A Different Man | $4,967 | -37% | 19 | -4 | $261 | $649,665 | 7 | A24 |
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