Columbia Pictures’ Venom is a monster hit, which has caused inexperienced writers to dig up comps in an attempt to seduce clicks. No, Venom is not bigger than Star Wars, but it is a bigger hit than another superhero movie.
Warner Bros. has been struggling mightily with their DC Universe, although the lone bright spot is their adaptation of Wonder Woman, which ended its theatrical run with a $821M global take. Thanks to China, Venom, which was birthed out of the “Amazing Spider-Man” comics, has just hit $822M at the worldwide box office. This isn’t meant to disgrace Wonder Woman, an impressive and fun movie that I am a fan of, but is to illustrate the power of Sony’s dark Marvel movie. (Venom is now targeting Batman v Superman‘s $873M.)
I think it’s important to understand that box office numbers kinda don’t mean shit to us horror fans, unless of course there’s something at stake outside of the rich getting richer. For example, the success of Venom has cemented two things: Sony’s Columbia Pictures will move forward with Morbius and Kraven the Hunter, and will also develop out this entire universe as a PG-13 franchise. We learned a lot from this hit. (A reverse example would be Universal Pictures’ Monster Universe, which was nixed after the deflating box office of Tom Cruise’s The Mummy.)
Next stop for Venom is $900M, which is unlikely, but this $800M is quite the milestone for a film critically panned, but beloved by fans.
