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‘Venom 3’ Tops Box Office Again, While Tom Hanks Film Struggles

‘Venom 3’ Tops Box Office Again, While Tom Hanks Film Struggles
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‘Venom 3’ Tops Box Office Again, While Tom Hanks Film Struggles

‘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 quiet weekend for North American movie theaters 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 $5 million from 2,647 locations.
“Venom 3” only fell 49% 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 $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. That's up 11% from last weekend. The animated charmer has made over $121 million in North America and $269 million worldwide, The Associated Press reported.
"'The Wild Robot' has quietly been this absolute juggernaut for the fall season," said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “For that film to see an increase after six weeks is astounding.”
“Smile 2” landed in third place with $6.8 million, helping to push its worldwide total to $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% on Rotten Tomatoes.
“It was a slow weekend anyway, but it didn’t resonate in a way that many thought it might," Dergarabedian said. "There are a lot of films out there for the audience that ‘Here’ was chasing."
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.”
Overall box office continues to lag behind 2023 by almost 12%. But holiday moviegoing will likely give the industry an end-of-year boost with titles like “Gladiator II” and “Wicked” on the way.
“In a couple of weeks, it’ll get a lot more competitive,” Dergarabedian said.
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 New 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 full picture of the moviegoing landscape, however. This weekend several relatively high-profile films playing in theaters did not report full 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 big moral dilemma. Domestic ticket sales were withheld. The studio did say 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 report on the Daisy Ridley movie “Young Woman and the Sea.” Results were most notably withheld during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"It’s really up to the distributors," Dergarabedian said. “Often times the reason that certain movies may not be reported is that there’s a chance that the quality of the movie will be conflated with the box office number.”

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The ‘Juror #2’ Cast Still Can’t Believe They Got to Work with Clint Eastwood

(L-R) Cedric Yarbrough, Zoey Deutch, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Leslie Bibb, Gabriel Basso and Francesca Eastwood attend the closing night gala premiere of "Juror #2" during the 2024 AFI Fest at TCL Chinese Theatre on October 27, 2024 in Hollywood, California. (Getty Images/AFP)
(L-R) Cedric Yarbrough, Zoey Deutch, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Leslie Bibb, Gabriel Basso and Francesca Eastwood attend the closing night gala premiere of "Juror #2" during the 2024 AFI Fest at TCL Chinese Theatre on October 27, 2024 in Hollywood, California. (Getty Images/AFP)
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The ‘Juror #2’ Cast Still Can’t Believe They Got to Work with Clint Eastwood

(L-R) Cedric Yarbrough, Zoey Deutch, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Leslie Bibb, Gabriel Basso and Francesca Eastwood attend the closing night gala premiere of "Juror #2" during the 2024 AFI Fest at TCL Chinese Theatre on October 27, 2024 in Hollywood, California. (Getty Images/AFP)
(L-R) Cedric Yarbrough, Zoey Deutch, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Leslie Bibb, Gabriel Basso and Francesca Eastwood attend the closing night gala premiere of "Juror #2" during the 2024 AFI Fest at TCL Chinese Theatre on October 27, 2024 in Hollywood, California. (Getty Images/AFP)

Nicholas Hoult was certain someone had made a mistake.

Clint Eastwood wanted to talk to him about starring in his new film, a slow burn legal thriller about a normal guy faced with an extraordinary moral dilemma. Surely Eastwood meant someone else, he thought. But soon enough they were chatting on the phone about "Juror #2," opening in theaters Friday.

"I was so nervous," the British actor said. "I remember saying to him, ‘I really like the script.’ I was so eager to please."

For Eastwood’s comeback, Hoult slipped into a pitch-perfect impersonation of his gravelly voice: "If you like it so much, I guess I’ll have to read it."

Suddenly Hoult was laughing. The tension was broken.

"I was like, wow this guy’s cool," he said. "He’s got a great sense of humor and we’re going to get along."

Though there may be a healthy amount of English self-deprecation in the story, the spirit of it isn’t unique to Hoult. Eastwood, 94, is the kind of living legend that has even the most seasoned veterans a little starstruck. "Juror #2," his 42nd film behind the camera, is getting strong reviews for being a smart, original courtroom thriller about an impossible conundrum.

In the original script by Jonathan Abrams, Hoult’s character, a recovering alcoholic with his first child about to be born, gets selected for jury duty on a murder case. But when the facts start to emerge, so do his memories and he’s forced to confront the possibility that he might have been unknowingly responsible.

"After the first read it had me," Eastwood wrote in an email. "It made me think about what would you do if you were put in this situation? What is right? What is wrong? Who would you protect? A true moral dilemma. That’s something I’d want to watch."

And he started rounding out his cast, led by Hoult who he called a true "movie star," with supporting turns from Toni Collette as the ambitious prosecutor, Chris Messina as the public defender, J.K. Simmons as a fellow juror, as well as Zoey Deutch and Kiefer Sutherland, who wrote a letter asking if there might be a role for him.

Sutherland had long imagined he’d cross paths with Eastwood. A lifelong Western fan, Sutherland’s late father Donald Sutherland had even worked with Eastwood a few times ("Kelly’s Heroes,Space Cowboys"). But when he read about the plans for "Juror #2" he felt a new sense of urgency.

"I always thought one day I would arrive at Mr. Eastwood’s doorstep. Then I realized that that time was maybe kind of going away," said Sutherland. "I just said, ‘I’ve always dreamed of working with you and if there is a part, any part, I would just like to be able to have the experience of watching you direct."

He was ultimately cast to play a lawyer and an AA sponsor to Hoult’s character. The screentime was relatively small, but the experience was exactly what he hoped: A masterclass in the truest sense.

"I’ve worked with people that shout and get angry and they’re very demonstrative," Sutherland said. "He was so amazingly quiet and calm and soft spoken. That’s someone who has power, when they can be that and get everything they need."

On one of his first days, an assistant director was explaining to Sutherland how to navigate a doorway in a scene. Eastwood stepped in to stop the tutorial, telling the AD, "He knows what he’s doing." Despite his 40-plus years in the business, Sutherland said he walked a little taller that day.

"It made my life," Sutherland said. "I’m very glad I didn’t work with him when I was 18 years old, because I would have tied myself in knots."

Collette similarly said she’s never felt so trusted.

"He’s so confident as a director, but not in a negative way. He’s just so present and allows it all to unfold," she said. "I’ve never worked with anyone who’s so easygoing, to be honest."

The film would also be the first time she and Hoult would share the screen since they played mother and son in "About a Boy" 23 years ago, when he was only 11. They’d texted a bit prior, but Collette was not prepared for the swell of emotion seeing Hoult, now 34, again. Then came their first scene together and it wasn’t going to be an easy one: In fact, it’s the last shot of the film.

But that’s the Eastwood way. His efficiency on set is the stuff of legend. Sometimes you get two takes, but three is almost unheard of. Hoult said he and the actors on the jury even rehearsed in secret to make sure they would nail the lengthier scenes. No one wanted to be the squeaky wheel.

"He’s not efficient for the sake of being efficient," Sutherland said. "I think Sydney Pollack, for instance, was really efficient and kind of when he became known for being efficient, started trying to show off his efficiency. ... I think Mr. Eastwood just kind of looks at a set and looks at a scene and just finds the straightest way to shoot it."

Much has been made about whether "Juror #2" is going to be Eastwood’s last film. But he’s not saying that, publicly or privately. In fact, when production went on hiatus during the actors strike, he didn’t even use that time as a break.

"I remember when we did come back from the strike, I was like, ’What did you do? And he was like, ‘Well, I was looking for new material,’" Collette said. "It’s nobody’s position to say this is his last movie."

Sutherland added: "His parking spot at the Warner Bros. lot isn’t going anywhere."