A Geeky Viewpoint

Last week I predicted a pretty low opening for Venom, $52 Million open weekend and $135 Million total domestic take.   Simply put I was wrong.

Shortly before Solo: A Star Wars Story opened we heard from multiple sources that Advanced Sale tickets we setting records.  According to Fandango.com:

“Solo” had the second-best first day of presales of the year, behind only “Avengers: Infinity War.” “Infinity War” also doubled the numbers set by “Black Panther,” in addition to outpacing the last seven Marvel movies combined, including massive titles like “Thor: Ragnarok,” “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” and “Captain America: Civil War.” 

So when Atom.com suggested virtually the same story:

The movie’s [Venom] pre-ticket sales are outpacing recent Marvel Cinematic Universe hits such as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 , Spider-Man: Homecoming and Ant-Man and the Wasp. In fact, Venom sits third behind Avengers: Infinity War and Black Panther in terms of Marvel’s pre-sales numbers.

Let's just say I didn't buy it, already been burned by that, not going anywhere near that.

Here's the deal, Solo: A Star Wars Story opened at $84 Million, Venom opened at $80 Million and they supposedly were near neck and neck in terms of presale tickets.

I spoke with a local Movie Account guy (no that's not their real title) about the box office and I think he was as surprised as I was at how well the movie did.   What they are quick to point out though is the Movie did well box office ways in specific markets and not across the board.    In the First Tier of Chicago Suburbs multiple screenings of the movie were sold out, a couple hundred miles west on I-94 saw virtually empty screenings. 

The second take away from our talk is that Venom had either great pre-sales or awful walk-up sales, depending on how you want to spin it.  In terms of pre-sales Venom had very strong ticket sales in the five days leading up to its release.

I'll be interested in watching where Venom tracks.  With a poor critical review and cinemascore as well as poor audience review on several web-site (it has a good score on RottenTomatoes.com) it is expected the movie will have a pretty big fall in Box Office for its second weekend.   Superhero movies that follow that pattern drop between 65 and 69 percent; or $24 to $28 Million. 

My accounting friend has even suggested the film could drop 72% which would put the film just over $22 Million domestically in its second frame.