Sony’s Venom movies truly are a box office anomaly. Glancing at the Metacritic scores, the first Venom confused critics and was, at best, tepid among fans but still managed to rake in over $850 million in 2018. The second, Let There Be Carnage, also had mixed reviews and did relatively okay, but still a nosedive from the previous installment with $500 million–though that can be partially attributed to movie-goers being weary about theaters at that time. Venom: The Last Dance is coming in with the weakest opening weekend, but is on track to beating another baddie at the box office: The Joker.
Though The Last Dance took the number one spot in the country, it only opened to $51 million–slightly off from the projections of $65 million and much lower than the prior two installments by $30 and $40 million, respectively. Let There Be Carnage opened with $90 million, beating the first movie, and setting a pandemic record at the time. Despite the low numbers, it might be surprising to see that it beat the Joker sequel, which opened at $39 million.
Looking at the history of the two franchises, even two months ago it seemed like an unlikely scenario. However, with Joker 2 bombing, losing hundreds of millions of dollars for Warner Bros., and receiving a swift home release, the Spider-Man anti-hero could potentially outperform Joker in every way.