Despite Bad Reviews 'Venom' Has Bite At Box-Office, $80M Opening Weekend; 'A Star Is Born' Opens With Impressive $41M

"Despite a rocky road to release the strange off-brand start to the Sony Marvel Spider-man Without Spider-Man Cinematic Universe know as Venom opened to an incredible $80M at #1. That smashes the previous October opening record holder Gravity which set the bar at $55.7M in 2013. It's weird to think a superhero/villain film could ever be considered an underdog story (especially this year) but Venom might have been it. Fans of the film were first put on edge when Sony finally decided that the film would get a PG-13 rating which angered star of the film Tom Hardy who's been vocal about the cuts from the R-rated version. Then there was the awful critics reviews who trashed the film as one of the worst of the year. So while the film opened to $10M on Thursday there was nothing there that guaranteed an ending like this with a potential massive drop-off by Sunday. But the monster just kept growing and now it's become yet another huge success for the superhero genre."

1. Venom — Sony — $80,030,000
2. A Star is Born —Warner Bros. — $41,250,000
3. Smallfoot —Warner Bros.— $14,900,000 
4. Night School — Uni. — $12,275,000
5. The House With A Clock In Its Walls — Uni. — $7,295,000 
6. A Simple Favor — Lionsgate — $3,435,000
7. The Nun— Warner Bros. — $2,610,000
8. Hell Fest — LGF — $2,075,000 ($8,864,476)
9. Crazy Rich Asians — WB — $2,060,000 
10. The Predator — Fox — $900,000

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