Venom: Will bad reviews lead to box office flop as it faces A Star Is Born?

The Tom Hardy-fronted caper was projected to beat Gravity’s October record of a $55.8 million opening weekend.

In fact, some forecasters have – according to Variety – expected it to land between $65 and $70 million.

Alas, that presumably depended on positive buzz building up in its favour – which hasn’t happened.

Instead, Venom has been largely slated by reviewers, and its Rotten Tomatoes score is currently a lowly 27%.

It hasn’t fared much better on Metacritic: its weighted score is just 33 out of a possible 100.

Sony are hoping Venom will launch a shared universe, but it presumably depends on how well Venom fares.

Fan hype and Tom Hardy’s star power should ensure it does well in its first weekend – but as for whether it can have legs and leave a good taste in fans’ mouths remains to be seen.

Notably, Venom has competition in the form of A Star Is Born, which could also be a thorn in its side.

The two movies are gearing up to play to different demographics, and their budgets also vary wildly – but A Star Is Born has done much better in the hype department.

Not only has it had Oscars buzz, it’s also picked up almost flawless reviews and spawned an iTunes hit in Shallow.

Variety claimed yesterday that it was looking at a $28 to $30 million bow in the US, but could rise as high as $40 million.

The two movies were made with different price tags: while Venom is thought to have cost $100 million, while the musical drama only set the studio back $36 million.

Hardy recently spoke about how many of his favourite moments in Venom ended up being cut.

But he later clarified: “What I’m saying is that I had a lot of time improvising and a lot of time playing with Venom so in honesty there’s probably about seven hours or more of the footage with me playing as Venom and enjoying myself.

“I took him right out there and played with it and had a lot of fun because there’s a lot of fun you can have with a project and with this character and I’ve done that.”

Venom and A Star Is Born are both out now.