Battle at the Box Office 10/8

Despite poor reception from critics, Venom infected the first weekend of October with the biggest opening ever for an October release and even beating a handful of MCU entries.

Venom opened to $80 million domestic and another $125.2 million internationally (including the second best Sony opening ever for South Korea) for a worldwide opening of over $205 million.  That domestic opening tops MCU entries like this summer’s Ant-Man and The Wasp, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger and Ant-Man and also topped X-Men entries like X-Men: Apocalypse and X-Men: First Class.  It also topped The Amazing Spider-Man, although it was beaten by The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which made $91 million its opening weekend.  It was by far the best opening ever for director Ruben Fleischer, with second place being Zombieland with a $24.7 million opening and it was the second best ever opening for star Tom Hardy, behind The Dark Knight Rises, which made double Venom’s take with $160.8 million back in 2012.

Also performing far beyond expectations was the new version of A Star is Born, which took second place with $42.6 million.  Worldwide, it made $56.8 million with an additional $14.2 added to its domestic opening. It was Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut so there’s nothing to compare to there but, as an actor, it was his eighth best opening of all time.  Its opening is also $7 million higher than Mamma Mia 2’s opening in August. There’s not a lot to compare, data-wise, for the prior versions of this story but the version from 1976 made a total of $80 million, which adjusted for 2018 dollars is over $348 million.

Smallfoot dropped to third with $14.9 million but it had a solid hold of 35%, although it probably has direct competition this coming weekend from Goosebumps 2.  Its made just shy of $43 million for its two weeks out.

Night School and The House with a Clock in Its Walls rounded out the top five, with the former dropping 55% from last week’s #1 opening and taking in $12.3 million, putting it at $46.8 million while House with a clock is just over $55 million for its three weeks out.

Venom also had the best Per Theater average of the weekend with $18,831  but close behind were limited releases Studio 53, which made $15,000 on 1 screen and The Hate U Give, which made $13,889 on each of its 36 screens.