Venom vs A Star Is Born box office shock: Tom Hardy movie shatters expectations

The film has only a 31% score on Rotten Tomatoes, leading to worries that it may not top Gravity’s record for all-time highest October debut, as previously expected.

But not only was that $55 million barrier quite easily cleared, the film romped all the way to an estimated $80 million – considerably above expectations, and comfortably breaking the October record.

CinemaScore reports viewers giving the movie a B+ grade, meaning it has fared considerably better with the general public than it has with critics.

It opened on the same weekend as A Star Is Born, which has had a much more enthusiastic response from reviewers and is even eyeing up some Oscars buzz.

Despite the fact that Venom trounced it by almost double, the drama still beat its own projections to win a very good $42.6 million, putting it in second place.

“This is a movie that will be around for months,” Warner’s domestic distribution head Jeff Goldstein said, according to Variety.

“There’s a lot of room for growth, particularly among younger audiences.”

The two movies combined gave the North American box office its best October weekend of all time.

Now it seems that the franchise prospects of Venom aren’t so up-in-the-air after all.

The end credits scene  of the Tom Hardy-fronted film introduced fans to a key villain who will presumably play a big role going forward in any future instalments.

Venom is part of the Spider-Man universe in the comics, but rights issues mean that Spidey himself is highly unlikely to ever be seen in this particular set of films.

Last week Hardy admitted some of his favourite scenes from Venom did not make the finished cut.

“There are scenes that aren’t in this movie,” he told ComicsExplained.

“There are like 30 to 40 minutes’ worth of scenes that aren’t in this movie… all of them.

“Mad puppeteering scenes, dark comedy scenes. You know what I mean? They just never made it in.”

Venom and A Star Is Born are both out now.