Sony’s VENOM Remains Poised to Break October Box Office Records

Read Time:2 Minute, 12 Second

This weekend sees the release of Sony’s Venom, based on the Marvel comics character. This is Sony’s second attempt to bring the antihero to the big screen, and it may just bring in a boatload of cash.

Way back in the aughts, when Tobey Maguire was still swinging around Queens as the wall crawler, Sony more or less forced director Sam Raimi to use Venom as one of the villains in 2007’s Spider-Man 3. In what I can only assume was an act of sabotage, Raimi cast That 70s Show‘s Topher Grace as Eddie Brock, the freelance photographer rival to Peter Parker. The result was about as bad as you’d expect, and, despite nice box office returns, Sony pulled the plug on a fourth Raimi/Maguire Spidey flick and rebooted the character with Andrew Garfield taking over the title role.

[As a side note, Venom was only one of the many problems in Spider-Man 3. There was Emo Peter Parker, two musical numbers, I’m pretty sure Peter accidentally hits, or at least aggressively shoves, Mary Jane during a night club scene, as well as a plethora of other issues that there isn’t enough space here to list.]

Garfield appeared in two films, The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2. While they were both financially successful, neither were huge hits with the fans. Sony eventually came to their senses and decided to team up with Marvel, and we got our third, and arguably best, Spider-Man and Peter Parker in the MCU.

Sony’s hopes of a Spider-Man Cinematic Universe died with the second reboot, at least that’s what everyone thought. Not long after the release of Spider-Man: Homecoming, Sony announced plans for a solo Venom film, minus Spider-Man. Most of us were wondering how you can get Venom without Spidey since the symbiote’s origin is so closely tied to him. Well, apparently people want to see it for themselves, because it looks like Venom is going to have quite the opening weekend. Maybe even the biggest October has ever seen.

Early tracking is predicting that Venom may open to around $60 – $65 million. If this holds, that would mean Venom could unseat the current October record holder, Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity, which opened to $55.7 million in 2013.

Venom stars Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams and Woody Harrelson.

What do you think, will Venom be able to beat Gravity‘s record? Will you be one of the fanboys heading to the theatre for Venom this weekend? I know I will. I was on the fence at first, but now I’m fully on board.

SOURCE: ComicBook.com