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LOS ANGELES — Last weekend, Marvel’s film Venom and Warner Bros.’ A Star Is Born maintained the top spots at the box office as the week’s three new wide releases fell by the wayside.
Columbia’s Venom came in at No. 1 for the second week running, adding $35.7 million in ticket sales for a cumulative $142.8 million, according to figures from measurement firm ComScore. Columbia said Sunday that the movie had collected $378.1 million globally.
Venom, the tale of a symbiotic alien-human duo, is part of a Columbia plan to revive its Spider-Man-linked superhero movies. The company has been working on features from a universe of about 900 Marvel characters tied to the web slinger — a comic-book canon that the studio has licensed from Walt Disney Co.-owned Marvel Entertainment. The success of Venom, which has exceeded analysts’ expectations, gives the studio a boost as it tries to compete with the more-expansive superhero franchises at Disney and Warner Bros.
Columbia Pictures, owned by Sony Corp. and based in Culver City, Calif., will soon be the only major movie studio outside Disney to have Marvel superheroes at its disposal. Disney is acquiring 21st Century Fox, which had rights to certain Marvel characters such as the X-Men.
Warner’s Oscar bait A Star Is Born maintained the No. 2 spot, adding $28 million for a cumulative $94.2 million.
As the month of October careens toward a box office record, the crowded marketplace can be a blessing or a curse for some films in their first weekends, although the hope is that they will play for weeks to come.
Such is the idea for No. 3, Universal Pictures’ First Man, which took flight over the weekend with everything to its advantage — prestige, good reviews (88 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), a movie star (Ryan Gosling) and an Oscar-winning director (Damien Chazelle).
Universal estimated Sunday that First Man earned $16.5 million in ticket sales from 3,640 North American theaters, and $25 million
worldwide. That was on par with expectations, but not exactly an eye-popping number for a space epic that cost nearly $60 million to produce.
For Universal’s president of domestic distribution Jim Orr, the box office intake for a film like First Man, which primarily appeals to older audiences not inclined to rush out to a movie theater on the first weekend, is going to be a marathon not a sprint.
“What we know is for these types of adult, fall films for discerning audiences, it’s
not about the opening weekend,” Orr said. “We’re very comfortable that it’s going to have a long life at the domestic box office.”
Audiences for the PG-13 rated First Man were primarily older (52 percent over 35), male (56 percent) and Caucasian (67 percent) and gave the film a B+ CinemaScore.
“I never expected First Man to have an opening weekend trajectory that was off the charts,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for box office
tracker comScore. “This is a film that has a lot of awards season buzz. It will attract a lot of older viewers and it’s going to keep rolling along and getting more and more accolades. First Man will be standing many weeks down the road.”
Columbia’s Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween debuted at No. 4 with $16.2 million, above analyst predictions of $15.7 million.
Based on stories from R.L. Stine’s horror anthology series, the kid-friendly sequel earned so-so reviews, with a B rating on CinemaScore and a 43 percent rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The original Goosebumps opened with $23 million in 2015 before going on to earn $150 million worldwide.
Rounding out the top five, Warner Bros.’ Smallfoot, now in its third weekend, added $9.3 million for a cumulative $57.6 million.
The final new wide release of the week, 20th Century Fox’s Bad Times at the El Royale, opened at No. 7 with $7.2 million.
The neo-noir thriller stars Chris Hemsworth, Jon
Hamm, Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo and Dakota Johnson as mysterious strangers who meet at the titular hotel at Lake Tahoe, which boasts a dark past of its own. It earned a B-rating on CinemaScore and a 70 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Fox’s The Hate U Give expanded into 212 additional theaters for a total of 248 and earned $1.8 million in its second weekend, a 245 percent increase, for a cumulative $2.5 million.
Fox Searchlight’s The Old Man & the Gun also expanded into an additional 179 locations in its third weekend for a total of 228. The film grossed $912,000 (a perscreen average of $4,000) for a cumulative $1.7 million.
National Geographic Entertainment’s Free Solo, now in its third weekend, added 88 locations and $859,051 (a 53 percent increase) for a cumulative $2.1 million.
This week, Universal reveals the umpteenth sequel to Halloween.
Note: The Top 20 films, compiled by The Associated Press, will not run this week.