‘Venom 3’ tops box office again, while Tom Hanks film struggles

“Venom: The Last Dance” enjoyed another weekend at the top of the box office. The Sony release starring Tom Hardy added $26.1 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.

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

“Venom 3” only fell 49% in its second weekend, which is a notably tiny drop for a superhero film, though it didn’t exactly open like one either. In two weeks, the movie has made over $90 million domestically; The first two opened to over $80 million. Globally, the picture is brighter given that it has already crossed the $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 $7.6 million. The animated charmer has made over $121 million in North America and $269 million worldwide. “Smile 2” landed in third place with $6.8 million, helping to push its worldwide total to $109.7 million.

The period-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% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Despite playing in almost 1,000 more locations, “Here” came in behind Focus Features’ papal thriller “Conclave” which earned $5.3 million. Playing in 1,796 theaters, “Conclave” dropped only 20% from its debut last weekend and has made $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 theaters this weekend in recent York and Los Angeles. It made an estimated $240,000, or $60,000 per screen, which is among the top three highest per theater 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 theaters.

Box office charts don’t always paint a packed picture of the moviegoing landscape, however. This weekend several relatively high-profile films playing in theaters did not update packed grosses for various reasons, including the Clint Eastwood film “Juror #2,” Steve McQueen’s WWII film “Blitz” and the Cannes darling “Emilia Pérez.” Netflix, which is handling “Emilia Pérez,” never reports box office. Apple Original Films is following suit with “Blitz,” a likely awards contender, which is in theaters before hitting Apple TV+ on Nov. 22.

“Juror No. 2” is a Warner Bros. release, and a well-reviewed one at that. The film directed by Eastwood stars Nicholas Hoult as a juror on a murder case who faces a large moral dilemma. Domestic ticket sales were withheld. The studio did declare that it earned $5 million from international showings, where it played on 1,348 screens.

Even major studios withhold box office numbers occasionally. Earlier this year, Disney did not update on the Daisy Ridley movie “youthful Woman and the Sea.” Results were most notably withheld during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Final domestic figures will be released Monday. Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore, were:

1. “Venom: The Last Dance,” $26.1 million.

2. “The Wild Robot,” $7.6 million.

3. “Smile 2,” $6.8 million.

4. “Conclave,” $5.3 million.

5. “Here,” $5 million.

6. “We Live In period,” $3.5 million.

7. “Terrifier 2,” $3.4 million.

8. “Singham Again,” $2.1 million.

9. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” $2.1 million.

10. “Bhool Bhulaiyaa,” $2.1 million.