Friday Estimates: Venom Shines on Opening Day

October 6, 2018

Venom

Despite earning terrible reviews, Venom was able to destroy the record for biggest October day with $32.75 million on Friday, topping the previous record holder Paranormal Activity 3 by a significant margin. Not only will the film blow past $70 million over the weekend, it could come close to $80 million. On the down side, as previously mentioned, its reviews are terrible, while it only managed a B plus from CinemaScore, so it won’t have good legs going forward. That said, the film reportedly cost $100 million to make ($116 million on the screen, $100 million after tax breaks) so even tragically short legs won’t stop the film from breaking even.

A Star is Born also did very well with an opening day of $15.8 million. The film’s reviews remain over 90% positive, while it earned an A from CinemaScore and both of these strongly suggest long legs. The film will likely top our $42 million prediction by a small margin and will easily hit $100 million domestically.

Smallfoot held on better than expected down just 46% to $3.5 million putting it on pace for $15 million over the weekend. It could get to $80 million domestically, thus matching its production budget.

Night School practically tied for third place with $3.48 million on Friday, but since it isn’t a family film, it won’t do as well over the rest of the weekend, earning $13 million. That’s still enough for the studio, Universal, to be happy with this result.

Looking in on the limited releases, we have two widely different results. The Hate U Give wasn’t that far out of the top ten with $175,000 in 36 theaters. It will easily enter the $10,000 club over the weekend giving it plenty of room to grow. I’m still not convinced it will expand truly wide. On the other hand, Shine only managed $87,000 in just over 600 theaters. It will miss the Mendoza Line by a significant margin.

- Friday Box Office Chart

- Venom Comparisons
- A Star is Born Comparisons

Filed under: Friday Estimates, Venom, Smallfoot, A Star is Born, Night School, The Hate U Give, Shine