The early fall months and often a lot of August are considered months where you can’t do big business at the box office, especially after the heady days of spring and summer. But you’d think after seeing some films do huge numbers in February and even January that studios would realize you can do big numbers year round – with the right property.
Sony got a lot of criticism for Venom without Spider-Man and the critics have not been kind to the film. But, in its opening weekend, it did $80 million in 4,250 locations with the tracking originally viewing it around $60 million. With a “B+” CinemaScore from viewers surveyed, it’s likely to do pretty well depending on how big the hold is next weekend. If it does hold then we’ll likely see this one cross the $200 million mark domestically if the competition doesn’t stand out in a big way or word of mouth doesn’t help.
The film was naturally male-heavy with almost 60% there but it skewed to the under twenty-five bracket well overall as only 36% of viewers were over twenty-five. Internationally, Sony knew what they were doing as they dropped it in 58 markets and landed $125 million with South Korea taking the biggest haul at $15.7 million. This gives the film a $205 million worldwide take, marking it as the largest for October worldwide.
Also landing new this weekend was A Star is Born and while there looked to be some manufactured drama between the two films and their respective films, this one did a strong $41 million for first-time director Bradley Cooper. While it’s not the record-shattering of Venom it is the tenth largest October opening of all-time. It also likely has some good legs as word of mouth from the audience, which was 66% female and 86% over twenty-five, could definitely help that in the weeks to come along with the “A” CinemaScore. This one didn’t open wide overseas as it went with a 31-market drop where it brought in $14 million. It has a good rollout over the next few weeks with some landing as far as December.
The rest of the list is about as expected with Smallfoot adding some additional coin alongside Night School as they serve other audiences. A Fathom Events showing with MET Opera: Aida lands in tenth with a $1.2 million take which is great to see, but it also lets us look at the eleventh place position where The Predator brought in a whopping $900,000. At least it’ll cross the $50 million market before disappearing since it opened on September 14th.
Next week has a few new openers that are going to gobble up screens for underperformers that have been around. Fox has Bad Times at the El Royale arriving in 2,800 screens while Univeral brings in First Man in 3,500 screens. Sony is looking to get the Halloween market locked down with Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween arriving in 3,400 screens.
| # | Title | Distributor Name | Weekend Total | # of Locs | Loc Avg | Cume Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Venom | Sony | $80,030,000 | 4,250 | $18,831 | $80,030,000 |
| 2 | Star Is Born, A | Warner Bros. | $41,250,000 | 3,686 | $11,191 | $42,600,000 |
| 3 | Smallfoot | Warner Bros. | $14,900,000 | 4,131 | $3,607 | $42,760,945 |
| 4 | Night School | Universal | $12,275,000 | 3,019 | $4,066 | $46,751,355 |
| 5 | House With A Clock In Its Walls, The | Universal | $7,295,000 | 3,463 | $2,107 | $55,051,560 |
| 6 | Simple Favor, A | Lionsgate | $3,435,000 | 2,408 | $1,426 | $49,014,356 |
| 7 | Nun, The | Warner Bros. | $2,610,000 | 2,264 | $1,153 | $113,367,310 |
| 8 | Hell Fest | Lionsgate | $2,075,000 | 2,297 | $903 | $8,864,476 |
| 9 | Crazy Rich Asians | Warner Bros. | $2,060,000 | 1,466 | $1,405 | $169,134,942 |
| 10 | MET Opera: Aida (2018) | Fathom Events | $1,240,229 | 721 | $1,720 | $1,240,229 |
| 11 | Predator, The | 20th Century Fox | $900,000 | 1,643 | $548 | $49,985,889 |
| 12 | White Boy Rick | Sony | $575,000 | 880 | $653 | $23,323,086 |
© comScore 2018
