Venom WINS UK box office despite bad reviews – as Johnny English 3 beats A Star Is Born

According to ScreenDaily, the movie has opened with £8 million – of which £5.6 million was the Friday-Sunday weekend period, and the rest was previews on Wednesday and Thursday.

The Tom Hardy-fronted movie, based on a popular Marvel Comics favourite, had received cold reviews from critics, winning only a 31% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

But it seems to have resonated much more with moviegoers: it has a B+ score from viewers on CinemaScore, and in the US it easily shattered Gravity’s record to earn the best October opening of all time.

For comparison, Spider-Man Homecoming – the title character of which shares a universe with Venom in the comics – opened to £9.4 million in 2017.

That movie went on to earn £30.7 million overall in the UK, and though it seems unlikely that Venom will go quite that high, bosses will no doubt be relieved that the negative buzz from critics didn’t affect ticket sales.

It was a tough marketplace this weekend, but Johnny English Strikes Again managed to beat A Star Is Born.

The third movie in the Rowan Atkinson-starring spy comedy opened to £4.1 million, over a million more than Bradley Cooper’s drama.

A Star Is Born, which also stars Lady Gaga, made £900,000 from previews as well, putting it overall at £4 million in this country so far – £100,000 behind Johnny English 3.

For comparison there, Johnny English’s first film opened with just £3.4 million back in 2003, while Johnny English Reborn in 2011 arrived to the tune of £5 million – so this latest instalment has arrived in between the two.

Despite coming third, though, forecasters expect A Star Is Born to have much longer legs and hang around in cinemas significantly longer than its rivals – particularly if the ongoing Oscars buzz is maintained.

Elsewhere, former number one The House With A Clock In Its Walls dipped to No4 in its third week on the market; earning another £902,203 to rack up a cumulative total of £6.8 million.

The Top 5 is completed by last week’s chart-topper Night School, dropping to £859,330 in its second week on release.

Hitting screens this coming weekend are Bad Times At The El Royale, an all-star thriller starring Jon Hamm and Dakota Johnson among others.

First Man, another Oscar-bait movie, is also out – with Ryan Gosling reuniting with the La La Land director to portray Neil Armstrong.

In more family-friendly viewing, high-profile animation Small Foot also lands on our shores on Friday.