Credit – Sony Pictures
‘Venom: Let there be Carnage’ has been delayed until October 15th from its original September 24th opening, according to a report from Variety, and this does not bode well for an increasingly bad trend at the box office. A bad trend that the mainstream entertainment news is blaming on the Covid Delta variant rather than bad storytelling and mismanagement of those movies. The original ‘Venom’, which came out in 2018, was a surprise smash hit for Sony doing $855 million globally. Sony is releasing ‘Venom: Let There be Carnage’ exclusively in theaters and, in my opinion, is nervous about what kind of numbers it will do at the box office given the abysmal results of ‘Black Widow’ and ‘The Suicide Squad’. In the Variety article from Rebecca Rubin, skyrocketing cases of Covid are the reason for the delay.
“The delay comes as COVID-19 cases are skyrocketing in the U.S. due to the highly contagious delta variant. The surge has led to a decline in consumer confidence in returning to the movies. According to a recent survey conducted by the National Research Group, 67% of moviegoers say they’re “very or somewhat comfortable” visiting their local multiplex — which is a dip of 3% compared to last week, and down 14% from one month ago.”
Take the Politics Out and You Will Have a Successful Movie
Are there small dips in attendance at theaters due to Covid…probably. But I don’t think that’s the majority reason. As I’ve stated in previous articles,
‘Godzilla vs Kong’, ‘A Quiet Place part 2’, and ‘Furious 9’, have all done phenomenal considering the current circumstances. And the one thing that all those movies have in common is that they do not have politics interjected into their stories. They are just fun unbridled entertainment. Movies like ‘Black Widow’ and ‘Snack Eyes: G. I. Joe Origins’, have identity politics woven into their stories that frankly are turning off an audience that is exhausted from being preached to. I think it’s a mistake for Sony not to release ‘Venom: Let There be Carnage’ sooner rather than later because the original movie was extremely entertaining. It wasn’t a movie that was deep or had any messages to tell, but it was a movie that you could sit down and just enjoy and have fun. I think Sony is gauging the current climate wrong and missing an opportunity to prove to Hollywood that you can make money with a movie without preaching to its audience.
Sony Has an Opportunity to Make Good Box Office Numbers
If you look at the numbers from “Black Widow’, ‘Jungle Cruise’, ‘Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins’, and ‘The Suicide Squad’, you can see where Sony might have an opportunity to show Disney and Warner Bros. how making a movie, that fans will have fun watching, can produce sales as a result. ‘Black Widow’ has only made $351 million to date, and is not going to meet the total budget it cost to make. ‘Jungle Cruise’ has only grossed $126.2 million globally to date and cost, according to Deadline, $362 million to produce. ‘Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins’ opened with a whimper at $13.3 million opening weekend and a $29.6 million gross globally. ‘The Suicide Squad’ is in even worse shape with a weak $26.2 million opening weekend and only $71.1 million globally to date. With an almost $300 million budget, according to Variety, ‘The Suicide Squad’ it is going to lose Warner a ton of money.
Movies Used to be a Fun Form of Escapism
‘Venom: Let There be Carnage’ should not be delayed and has a great opportunity to do what ‘Godzilla vs Kong’ and ‘Furious 9’ did at the box office. When you offer mindless entertainment to fans who just want to have fun and escape reality for a little while, you will see results at the box office. I am in no way diminishing the quality of these movies, I am merely pointing out that the reason we all used to go to the movies was to escape our daily lives and problems for a few hours and have some fun with family and friends. I will say, as a sidebar, that I do think the new “Delta Variant scare” will probably have some affect on people going to the movies. We shouldn’t let that happen as that is all it is…a scare tactic by the main stream media to keep us cooped up and afraid of something that is, for the majority of us, not going to kill us.
Related: ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’
