MarvelBlog News for October 20th, 2024

Happy Venom Week, everyone!

After an absolutely brutal 2024, Sony’s Spider-Man Universe finally enjoys a bit of happiness this Friday.

Venom: The Last Dance debuts in theaters and is poised to become a box office hit. Probably.

We’ll discuss the plight of Sony in this week’s MarvelBlog News.

Darkest Before the Dawn

Madame Web debuted in theaters on Valentine’s Day 2024.

Let’s just say that if you took your date to that film, they likely ghosted you immediately afterward.

Audiences stubbornly ignored the expensive would-be tentpole title, which earned a woeful $15.3 million on opening weekend.

During its entire theatrical run, the abysmal film grossed a horrific $43.8 million and wasn’t even a hit overseas.

Sony estimates the film’s final gross as $100.3 million, and there’s a running joke that anything that close to $100 million really made $90 million.

So, Sony must lie upward regarding this trainwreck. If you believe the studio – and I don’t – it cost $80 million to make.

Even if that were true, we’d still be talking about a nine-figure loss for the company.

This performance comes on the heels of 2022’s Morbius, a movie so bad its reception deluded Sony into re-releasing it.

Studio executives couldn’t tell sarcasm from the “It’s Morbin’ Time” meme and gave the film another chance.

That led to box office of only $162 million worldwide against a $75 million budget (*wink*).

In between, Sony did release the wildly successful Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

However, the studio later ticked off its creators, who have exited the television side of their Sony contract.

They’ve got one foot out the door, and the third Spider-Verse film just suffered an indefinite delay.

Somehow, I haven’t even covered the bad news yet, which is that Sony believes their worst film to date is Kraven the Hunter.

They’ve been hiding it for a while now, have tried multiple reshoots, and foolishly spent $130 million on it.

Principal photography finished in June 2022, yet the film hasn’t come out in October 2024. That tells the whole story.

Folks, Sony’s Marvel universe is a mess.

Brightest Dawn?

Now, there’s hope on the horizon. Mostly. Venom is the one non-Spider-Man live-action franchise Sony has handled well.

The first Venom movie proved hugely successful, rivaling Deadpool in terms of financial success.

Venom grossed $856 million worldwide against a $116 million budget.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage wasn’t quite as successful, but it was still a strong earner with $507 million against a $110 million budget.

I should add that the pandemic negatively impacted its overall box office potential. If not for that, it probably made much more.

So, the Tom Hardy franchise seems Sony-proof in terms of its performance. Thus far.

The news about the latest film, Venom: The Last Dance, isn’t as good. Hopefully, it’ll get better by the middle of the week, though.

Much of what I’m hearing right now is anecdotal, but I’ve got friends who have seen the film. They…didn’t love it.

I think you can tell by my tone that I’m being polite. This one may be a problem, and there are signs that Sony knows.

For starters, the run-time of the film is only 95 minutes, which hints at a fair amount of editing.

Without credits, Venom: The Last Dance is 1 hour 35 minutes. https://t.co/rF9aD2hqif

— Cryptic HD QUALITY (@Cryptic4KQual) October 11, 2024

Some films do better with that kind of cutting, though. It tightens the story. In other instances, stuff gets thrown out because it just didn’t work.

Let’s remember that there was some Hollywood strike-related weirdness to this project’s filming. That makes me nervous.

Venom 3 started then stopped then restarted production over a five-month stretch.

Theoretically, nobody could work on rewriting the film if it wasn’t playing well on set.

What to Expect from Venom

Something else to keep in mind here is that Sony is trying some stunts to boost hype for the film. Here’s one:

We just get each other 👅 Don’t miss #Venom: The Last Dance in theatres October 25. pic.twitter.com/m4MwC1lTWt

— TINA SNOW (@theestallion) October 17, 2024

Folks, Megan Thee Stallion isn’t in this film. Sony is basically paying her to boost its awareness on social media.

Generally speaking, when something comes together at the last minute, like this promo clip, it’s a desperation tactic.

On the plus side, Venom: The Last Dance is tracking for a $70 million opening.

While that sounds good, it’d be the lowest debut of the three films.

Also, tracking has been overly optimistic on a couple of other recent comic book films that Joker 2 debacle.

People may be waiting to read reviews for this one, and I’m not confident that’ll work in the film’s favor.

On the bright side, this Spider-Man rumor is floating around.

Along those lines, Sony has started leaning into the “surprise” that Knull is in the film with a tease that he’ll do more later in the Sony comic-verse.

How much does any of this matter? I have no idea, but Sony needs a win here. I mean NEEDS a win.

So, there’s a lot riding on Venom: The Last Dance.

Marvel Miscellany

New York Comic Con is this weekend, and Marvel has a strong presence here.

However, I’ll save those stories for next week, although I’m sure we’ll cover the big stuff on MarvelBlog.

Otherwise, the biggest news of the week is that Deadpool & Wolverine just broke another record.

The film debuted on digital release – I know I bought it – and immediately became the best-selling R-rated title ever.

That statement applies to the first week of literally any R-rated domestic digital debut ever. And it’s a 15-year-old medium.

In terms of profitability, Deadpool 3 is one of Marvel’s most successful titles ever…and at the absolutely perfect moment.

Finally, there’s a Secret Wars rumor floating around that’s so wild I simply must share it, even though I don’t believe it.

Some folks sound convinced that Thanos (!!!) will return as part of Avengers: Secret Wars.

Somehow, that might not even be the shocking part. He could possibly be one of the heroes in the story.

I don’t even know how to process that, as I’d trust Thanos to stab me in the back and literally nothing else.

To a larger point, this rumor sounds too big to keep secret. So, if there’s anything to it, we should know soon.

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