Venom 3 tops North American box office again, while Tom Hanks film struggles

It was a relatively quiet weekend for North American movie theatres leading up to the presidential election.

Venom: The Last Dance enjoyed another weekend at the top of the North American box office. The Sony release starring Tom Hardy added US$26.1 million (S$34.5 million) in ticket sales, according to studio estimates on Sunday (Nov 3).

It was a relatively quiet weekend for North American movie theatres leading up to the presidential election. Charts were dominated by big studio holdovers, like Venom 3, The Wild Robot and Smile 2, while audiences roundly rejected the Tom Hanks, Robin Wright and Robert Zemeckis reunion Here. Thirty years after Forrest Gump, Here opened to only US$5 million from 2,647 locations.

Venom 3 only fell 49 per cent in its second weekend, which is a notably small drop for a superhero film, though it didn’t exactly open like one either. In two weeks, the movie has made over US$90 million domestically; The first two opened to over US$80 million. Globally, the picture is brighter given that it has already crossed the US$300 million threshold.

Meanwhile, Universal and Illumination’s The Wild Robot continues to attract moviegoers even six weeks in (and when it’s available by video on demand), placing second with US$7.6 million. The animated charmer has made over US$121 million in North America and US$269 million worldwide. Smile 2 landed in third place with US$6.8 million, helping to push its worldwide total to US$109.7 million.

The time-hopping Here, a graphic novel that was adapted by Forrest Gump screenwriter Eric Roth, was financed by Miramax and distributed by Sony’s TriStar. With a fixed position camera, it takes audiences through the years in one living room. Critics were not on board: In aggregate it has a lousy 36 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes.

Rounding out the top five was the Focus Features papal thriller Conclave with US$5.3 million. Playing in 1,796 theatres, Conclave dropped only 20 per cent from its debut last weekend and has made US$15.2 million so far. Two Indian films also cracked the top 10 in their debuts, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 and Singham Again.

Jesse Eisenberg’s film A Real Pain, a comedic drama about cousins on a Holocaust tour in Poland, launched in four theatres this weekend in New York and Los Angeles. It made an estimated US$240,000, or US$60,000 per screen, which is among the top three highest per theatre averages of the year. Searchlight Pictures will be expanding the well-reviewed film nationwide in the coming weeks, going wide on Nov 15 to over 800 theatres.