‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ Had The Biggest Opening Weekend Of The Pandemic Era

It was said that the moviegoing experience was dead. One would-be blockbuster after another underperformed. Some tanked. The fear among theater owners was that cinema would permanently move to streaming, everyone watching big films on their comparatively small TVs. But lately there’s been some good news at the box office. First, Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings proved a massive hit, breaking pandemic-era records. Now there’s a new box office king, and his name is Tom Hardy.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, Venom: Let There Be Carnage had a pandemic-era best opening weekend, raking in a whopping $90.1 million in the U.S. alone. That’s still shy of the $96.2 million Joker hauled two years back, in happier times. But it still bested the two previous record holders. Black Widow opened to $81 million in July. And while Shang-Chi amassed $94.7 million, that was over the four-day Labor Day weekend. $75.4 million of that came in the first three days.

The Venom sequel — which ropes in Woody Harrelson as the main baddie, with a far more evil symbiote of his own — was the subject of numerous delays and release date switcheroos. In August alone it was bumped from late September to mid-October, only to get moved to October 1. But clearly there was no need to worry. Movies Maybe they’re back.