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- DEADPOOL 3 Star Ryan Reynolds Shares A First Look At The MCU’s Unique Take On Dogpool DEADPOOL 3 Star Ryan Reynolds Shares A First Look At The MCU’s Unique Take On Dogpool CBM (Comic Book Movie)
- ‘Deadpool 3’, ‘Gladiator 2’, ‘Beetlejuice 2’, ‘Juror No. 2’ & ‘Venom 3’ Among Film Productions To Restart ASAP As Hollywood Gets Back To Work Post-Strike Deadline
- Clint Eastwood’s ‘Juror No. 2’ to Restart Production as Early as This Week — World of Reel Jordan Ruimy
- Hollywood scrambles to restart TV and film production with strikes over Axios
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Tag Archives: Venom
Marvel’s Midnight Suns Season Pass detailed, including Deadpool, Venom, Morbius, and Storm
Publisher 2K [615 articles]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/companies/take-two-interactive-software/2k”>2K and developer Firaxis have detailed the Marvel’s Midnight Suns [6 articles]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/games/marvels-midnight-suns”>Marvel’s Midnight Suns Season Pass, available as part of the “Legendary Edition” of the game and for individual purchase. It will feature new characters from across the Marvel Universe, including Deadpool, Venom, Morbius, and Storm.
The Season Pass will consist of the following content:
Downloadable Content Packs
- Downloadable Content Pack #1: Deadpool – A foulmouthed mercenary with a heart of gold, Deadpool has a penchant for grisly violence and lighthearted, fourth-wall breaking wisecracks;
- Downloadable Content Pack #2: Venom – Spider-Man’s nemesis and one of the main game’s bosses, Venom turns playable hero in DLC #2, armed with all of the same symbiote attacks that once threatened the lives of the Midnight Suns;
- Downloadable Content Pack #3: Morbius – One of the original comic book Midnight Sons, Morbius is an accomplished biochemist who, in an attempt to cure his own rare blood disease, turned himself into a living vampire;
Downloadable Content Pack #4: Storm – A powerful member of the X-Men, Storm has the ability to generate and manipulate wind, lightning, rain, and other types of weather to her will.In addition to these heroes and their respective new abilities, each of the four post-launch downloadable content packs included in the Season Pass will introduce new story missions, a new upgrade for the Abbey, and a selection of new skins and outfits.
Legendary Premium Pack
The Season Pass also includes the Legendary Premium Pack featuring the following 23 premium skins such as Blade’s Blade 1602 skin, Captain America’s Future Soldier skin, Iron Man’s Iron Knight skin and Spider-Man’s Demon Spider skin. These skins are available right at launch.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns is due out for PS5 [3,497 articles]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/platforms/playstation/ps5″>PlayStation 5, Xbox Series [2,740 articles]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/platforms/xbox/xbox-series”>Xbox Series, and PC [16,040 articles]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/platforms/pc”>PC via Steam and Epic Games Store on December 2, followed by PS4 [23,977 articles]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/platforms/playstation/ps4″>PlayStation 4, Xbox One [11,442 articles]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/platforms/xbox/xbox-one”>Xbox One, and Switch [12,301 articles]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/platforms/nintendo/switch”>Switch at a later date.
Morbius Returns to Theaters and Flops, As It Should
Sony and Marvel’s Morbius has become an internet meme over the last few weeks, and for the most part, they’re hilarious. Seeing this, Sony came to the conclusion of re-releasing the Jared Leto film this weekend in the hopes that all the internet goofs would translate to a bigger box office haul. And if you were among those wondering if the joke had gone too far and we’d irony’d ourselves into a Morbius 2, somehow, let this serve as good news to allay your fears.
To be quite blunt about it: the movie bombed hard on its first day back at the cinemas. According to Forbes’ Scott Mendelson, Morbius’ Friday returns only came to a meager $85,000, leading to an overall $73.6 million domestic take home. Saturday’s earnings have yet to be revealed at time of writing, but the odds aren’t exactly in its favor. All those jokes were merely about the idea of Morbius rather than the film itself, something that Sony learned the hard way. Their attempt to get in on the joke didn’t just backfire, it exploded in such a way that even Michael Bay found himself impressed by the sheer, stupid spectacle of it all.
The thing about Morbius and its rise to a meme is that it all took off because no one had much faith in the film to begin with. We’re all actively aware that Sony’s basically throwing darts at a wall to figure out what people want to see with Spider-Man’s supporting cast, a roster that’s basically kneecapped from the jump because they inevitably have to brush shoulders or acknowledge the teenage webhead in question. Tom Hardy’s Venom movies have enough going on to make you temporarily forget he could ever try to devour Tom Holland’s Spidey, but that’s only because the comics have spent years giving the character his own weird, gooey mythology in the hopes of giving future films enough material to avoid having to strike a deal with Holland’s agent. Meanwhile, other characters such as Morbius, Kraven, and Madame Web have yet to be afforded a real, consistent opportunity to distance themselves from the amazing arachnid in the source material.
Yes, Sony lucked out extremely well with Venom and Miles Morales’ Spider-Verse films, but both of those characters already had strong, built-in fanbases to begin with, to say nothing of what each of their respective films set out to accomplish. The Spider-Verse movies have a unique animation style and a genuine earnestness that puts just about all other superhero content to shame, and Venom has Tom Hardy talking to himself and getting beaten around by a passive aggressive goo monster. Morbius has neither, and it couldn’t even make the most of its lead actor being a musician. Say whatever you want about Venom, at least it managed to summon a cheesy song to play over the end titles that later winds up on you Spotify for longer than you’d care to admit.
RIP in Morbius, Morbius. You died as you lived, as a joke who realized too late that you yourself were the punchline.
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All the celebrities who ‘died’ from smoking toad venom
They got all hopped up smoking toad venom and “died” — and now they’re high and mighty about being “reborn.”
Up until recently, hallucinogenic toad venom was associated with underground thrill seekers, but the so-called psychotropic snake oil has become increasingly mainstream as celebrities like boxing icon Mike Tyson, controversial fine artist Hunter Biden and HGTV flipper Christina Haack preach about its mind-expanding effects.
The ring legend recently described how the drug caused him to “die” and be “reborn.”
“I ‘died’ during my first trip,” the 55-year-old former heavyweight champ told The Post earlier this week, describing a psychedelic metamorphosis. “In my trips, I’ve seen that death is beautiful.”
His cathartic sensation stems from one of the world’s most powerful psychoactive compounds — 5-MeO-DMT (5-methoxy-N, N-dimethyltryptamine) — which is derived from a toxin that the Bufo alvarius, a Mexico amphibian otherwise known as the Sonoran Desert toad, secretes as a fear tactic to deter predators.
Also known as the “God molecule,” the chemical has been touted by its devotees in wellness circles as a cure for everything from drug addiction to mental illnesses.
And they’re not just hopping mad: This past summer, Oxford-based startup Beckley Psytech raised $80 million to speed up clinical trials to determine the compound’s efficacy at treating depression, Business Wire reported.
But the drug, which is a Schedule 1 classified substance, isn’t fun and games for everyone, like comedian Chelsea Handler who said she thought she would “pass away” after a hit.
“The most terrible thing,” the 46-year-old said in her HBO Max “Evolution” special. “I couldn’t move… And I was like ‘Oh, oh, oh you’re gonna pass away today.’”
While the jury’s still out about whether 5-MeO-DMT is a cure-all, Tyson is not the only votary of venom with a ribbet-ing story about being “reborn.”
Mike Tyson
Many believe that drugs negatively impacted Iron Mike in the past. However, the boxing icon claims that a toad-verdose saved his life — by “killing” him.
Tyson revealed he tried 5-MeO-DMT on a “dare” several years ago when he was 100 pounds overweight and hooked on drugs and alcohol, describing his metamorphosis earlier in November at Wonderland, a Miami conference dedicated to psychedelics, micro-dosing and medicine.
“In my trips, I’ve seen that death is beautiful,” the Brownsville, Texas, native described. “Life and death both have to be beautiful, but death has a bad rep.”
“The toad has taught me that I’m not going to be here forever. There’s an expiration date,” added Kid Dynamite, who has reportedly tripped 53 times — sometimes multiple times per day.
The boxing phenom has since recounted his revelatory envenomation on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” which has become something of a forum for recounting celebrity psychedelic experiences.
Since undergoing his perspective-altering regimen, Tyson has lost 100 pounds in three months, started boxing again and reconnected with his wife and children.
He also attributes the transformation to 5-MeO-DMT stripping his “ego” and making him more “creative” and focused.
“I’m more present as a businessman and entrepreneur,” said the boxer, who currently tours the country espousing the virtues of this alleged hallucinogenic holy grail.
It may sound like Tyson’s tripping, but his description of the drug’s effects jives with expert analysis.
Dr. Mike Dow, a psychology doctorate who practices psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy at Field Trip Health, told Instyle: “There’s still more research to be done to truly understand how 5-MeO-DMT works, but as a tryptamine (like psilocybin and LSD) it can create a sense of unity, euphoria, and ego dissolution.”
Meanwhile, like Tyson, many users say the afterglow of a toad venom trip can trigger them to make major life changes.
“I immediately broke up with my long-term boyfriend,” New York City tripper Barrett Pall told The Post. The Soho-based life coach and influencer, who also booked a trip around the world and decided to reconnect with his estranged father, added, “I was just so sure that everything I was deciding was right.”
Christina Haack
Christina Haack, host of HGTV’s “Flip or Flop,” turned a frog into a prince after revealing that she met her new boyfriend, realtor Joshua Hall, after smoking the trippy toxin.
“I met Josh when I wasn’t in a state of fear or fight-or-flight,” the 38-year-old reality TV star wrote in a July Instagram post. “I had taken time off social, hired a spiritual coach and smoked a Bufo toad (which basically reset my brain and kicked out years of anxiety in 15 mins).”
Haack likely didn’t literally toke the toad as 5-MeO-DMT is extracted by “milking” the toad’s venom glands, then drying the secretions into a paste — although it’s increasingly being manufactured synthetically in the lab amid fears that its psychedelic status is driving the species to extinction, Euro News reported.
However, her experience of a mental reset is corroborated by other hallucinogenic voyagers, who describe 5-MeO-DMT as the most potent psychedelic on the planet with blissful effects that begin right after ingestion and last for 15 to 20 minutes.
“There’s a reason why 5-MeO-DMT can reset one’s brain and help one overcome years of anxiety in 15 minutes,” said Martin W. Ball, Ph.D., who hosts the Entheogenic Evolution podcast. “It’s the most monumental, and potentially worldview and identity-shattering experience a person can have.”
Chelsea Handler
Chelsea Handler said she’s tried it all — including doing Ayahuasca on camera for a Netflix show — but she said her toad venom trip was more terror-inducing than revelatory.
In her “Evolution” special, Handler said she was attending a silent retreat in the woods of Topanga Canyon when she approached revelers prepping for a toad trip.
“I said, ‘Let’s party.’ She said, ’It’s not really that kind of drug,’ and I’m ‘Listen b—ch, I’ll decide what kind of drug it is,’” she recalled. “She said it’s ‘transcendental,’ that’s the word she used, so I was already bored.”
‘I couldn’t move… And I was like “Oh, oh, oh you’re gonna pass away today.”‘
Chelsea Handler
Handler then said took a hit from a “little crack pipe or whatever,” and that’s where it went downhill.
“It’s immediately terrible — like the most terrible thing. Dark swirly greens and purples it was like I was on a rollercoaster and my head was in a vice and I couldn’t move… And I was like ‘Oh, oh, oh you’re gonna pass away today,’” she said. “And then I’m like don’t be so dramatic you’re not gonna pass away you’ve already received some brain damage.”
She said she was “sweating” and “hyperventilating” and that’s when she knew she wanted out.
“When I couldn’t wait anymore, I was like ‘You have to make this stop! I’m in a matrix,’” she said in the special. “Finally, I start to come out of it and I was, first of all, embarrassed because I was nude and that I had just lost complete control.”
The former “Chelsea Lately” host also recalled the awful incident to the Hollywood Reporter in 2019.
“I was immediately drenched in sweat feeling as sick as I’ve ever felt,” she said. “I went to open my eyes to focus because I was spinning and I thought, ‘This isn’t good, I don’t like this.’”
According to Handler, the woman told her to “‘Just keep breathing.’ And I’m like, ‘You need to hold my hand.’ It was super-intense and then it was over after three minutes of panic and I said, ‘OK, I’m alive.’”
A cautionary tale
Moments like Handler’s are common when smoking toad venom, according to the Addiction Center, which notes that many users are “unable to move and lack awareness of their surroundings” after puffing the frog.
Indeed, despite the purported health benefits, experts caution against recreationally using the compound, which is categorized in the US as a Schedule 1 classified substance that carries a ten-year prison sentence for possession.
“It’s such an intense experience that, in most cases, doing it at a party isn’t safe,” said Dr. Alan K. Davis, a clinical psychologist and assistant professor at the Psychedelic Research Unit at Johns Hopkins University.
“If people get dosed too high, they can ‘white out’ and disassociate from their mind and body,” he added.
Others can experience vomiting and anxiety for days afterward, while some end up in the emergency room.
Hunter Biden
But, it hasn’t stopped the elite from seeking healing. President Joe Biden’s wayward progeny swears by the drug. In his memoir, “Beautiful Things,” Hunter Biden, 51, described toad venom as a “salve” that helped him kick his crack cocaine habit.
“I know it sounds loopy,” he wrote of its “Limitless”-evoking effects. “Yet whatever else it did or didn’t do, the experience unlocked feelings and hurts I’d buried deep for too long.”
Diplo
When it comes to toad venom, Diplo is apparently in the mile “high” club. The 43-year-old “Close To Me” DJ claimed he used 5-MeO-DMT to calm his nerves after the window on his private jet cracked during a terrifying 2019 flight to Ohio.
“Dear Colombus and Minneapolis, my jet window just cracked open and the pilots are wearing masks so not sure ill make my shows tonight but they left the wifi on so I’m just going to sit in the back and smoke toad venom and Vlog,” wrote Diplo, whose real name is Thomas Wesley Pentz, on Instagram.
Thankfully, the plane landed safely following the scare — although whether Diplo actually embarked on said plane “trip” is still unclear.
Nacho Vidal
Unfortunately, not every Bufo toad venom fatality was figurative or transformative. In March, Spanish porn actor Nacho Vidal was charged with the murder of fashion photographer Jose Luis Abad, who died after inhaling Bufo toad vapors.
The skin-flick star had allegedly administered Abad the venom during a 2019 shamanic ritual in the hopes that it would cure his cocaine addiction.
Meanwhile, prior investigations had found that the toad venom ceremonies were being carried out on a regular basis. Vidal, who has appeared in more than 100 pornographic pictures, even previously promoted the mind-altering substance on YouTube, according to Spanish newspaper El País, as reported in Rolling Stone.
A dangerous trend?
Despite the dangers, Sonoran Desert toad venom is becoming increasingly en vogue among young New Yorkers, who score the rare resin by hiring shamans who illegally collect toads for their use in the drug trade — which the Addiction Center says is a “threat to the species.” These so-called healers then distribute it at ceremonies throughout the US, charging $200 to $500 per person.
Pall, who attended one such ceremony, described his trip to The Post as 45 minutes of “shooting through the universe” and “being reborn.”
“My life has never been the same since,” he said.
Eternals buries Dune at the weekend box office
Apparently there’s still some juice in this Marvel Cinematic Universe thing, huh? Who could’ve seen that coming? In case you can’t tell, this is sarcasm. After all, Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings stands as one of the most successful movies of this nightmare pandemic era we’ll be living in forever, so it seems like Marvel movies are still going to be big no matter what—provided you don’t release them day-and-date on Disney+, which (at least for a Marvel movie) is a bit of a box office killer.
But we’re not talking about Shang-Chi here, we’re talking about Chloé Zhao’s Eternals, which opened to an impressive $71 million this weekend. Possibly indicating that reviews (and global pandemics) don’t really matter to Marvel fans when it comes to opening weekends, the movie is on pace to make a ton of cash both domestically and globally.
That $71 million take is also more than enough to utterly destroy all of the competition, with Dune dropping to second in its third week with only $7.6 million. It’s made nearly $84 million, so it’s doing okay, but it probably won’t catch No Time To Die and Venom: Let There Be Carnage (which made $6 million and $4 million, respectively, bringing them to $143 million and $197 million). That parenthetical means that, yes, this is yet another week where we get to hem and haw about whether or not a second movie will cross $200 million this year. It should, but who knows?!
Moving down the list, Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch is actually moving up the list, expanding to 417 more theaters and making about the same amount of money it made last week, but that was enough to lift it from 10 to six on the charts. Halloween Kills fell hard, as you might expect since the spooky season is over, and Kristen Stewart’s Spencer debuted modestly with $2.1 million on a limited rollout.
Of course, true fans know that the real battle this week was between Antlers and Last Night In Soho, the Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen of box office charts (if Hamilton and Verstappen were fighting over last place). The two movies opened with the same amount of money last week, and this week they remain relatively neck-and-neck: Antlers made a cool $2 million, while Soho fell back to $1.8 million. Nothing that can’t be overcome, especially with Soho’s wider rollout, but we look forward to keeping an eye on this thrilling battle for weeks to come.
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As always, this data comes from Box Office Mojo. Head over there to see a more detailed breakdown of the numbers. The full top 10 is below.
- Eternals
- Dune
- No Time To Die
- Venom: Let There Be Carnage
- Ron’s Gone Wrong
- The French Dispatch
- Halloween Kills
- Spencer
- Antlers
- Last Night In Soho
Squid Game most popular baby costume search, somehow
The satisfactions of parenthood are, reportedly, many. Watching your child grow into a complete person. Reflecting on the joys of opening a present on Christmas morning. Imagining them being crushed on all sides by the oppressive forces of capitalism, causing them to be susceptible to malevolent game show hosts offering moderately large amounts of money in exchange for putting their lives on the line. It’s a rich tapestry.
That’s what we can infer, anyway, from a new Variety report this morning that asserts that—in addition to its popularity among the “on solid foods” set—Netflix’s Squid Game has also dominated the rankings of Google search results for baby costumes this Halloween. (Squid Game is actually topping the rankings for all Halloween costumes, but it’s the baby ones that are really licking our mental honeycombs right now.)
To claim this crown, the series—which is getting ubiquitous enough now that it’s getting banned from schools in various forms—had to defeat a whole host of more classic costume searches, including “Little Red Riding Hood,” “spider,” “Peter Pan,” and “Addams Family.” (Are people dressing their kids up as Pubert Addams from Addams Family Values? That’s fantastic.)
Now, let’s be clear: Baby costumes are rarely, if ever, suggested, purchased, and executed by the actual infants wearing them. (Their reference pools, buying power, and hands are just too small, more’s the pity.) But if an enterprising parent wants to use your gestating person as a billboard for their own personality/Netflix queue, more power to them, we guess.
The real issue here is that Squid Game only started popping off in the public consciousness a couple of weeks ago, which has apparently not given even the most relentless trend-chasing costume companies much time to put something together that really make you think “murder marbles!” when looking at a pre-verbal child. The best result most people are getting is apparently just a onesie with a Squid Game character on it—the modern equivalent to a Spider-Man costume that just has pictures of Spider-Man on the chest piece—which is especially tragic because this beautiful nightmare creature is right there:
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Just Dune it
Play the game based on the new book the movie is based on.
That being said, if you really want to tap into the most horrifying moment of Squid Game, we bet you can still find a few bright red fright wigs that you could cut into a boy band haircut somewhere on the cheap.
‘No Time To Die’ Bounds To $119M Overseas Bow; ‘Venom 2’ Licks Russia – Deadline
Refresh for latest…: A big and busy weekend at the international box office reaffirmed the power of theatrical as MGM/Eon/Universal’s No Time To Die bonded with audiences to the tune of $119.1M, coming in over on yesterday’s estimates.
In like-for-like markets at current exchange rates No Time To Die is in line with Skyfall, and just below Spectre (-17%) excluding previews. Wow!
Meanwhle, Sony’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which thrashed to a mega-debut domestically, also licked up a $13.8M start in Russia — the market’s best debut of any film during the health crisis, taking over the benchmark previously set by Warner Bros/Legendary’s Dune. The latter film, in play for three weeks, has topped $100M overseas.
The industry has been speculating that if any movie could get folks back into cinemas in the pandemic era, the latest in this enduring Bond franchise was the one. And so it has delivered with the biggest gross for a Hollywood movie this session and the first time a Hollywood film has crossed $100M in its overseas debut during the pandemic without China in the mix.
All kudos to 007, and we’ll get back to him in a minute. However, her majesty’s super secret agent doesn’t get the crown of offshore or global leader this session as that belongs to Chinese propaganda film The Battle At Lake Changjin which grossed a staggering RMB 1.51B ($230M) in China. Held back to release during the National Day holiday and sporting a 9.5 score from audiences, the Wu Jing-starrer is set during the Second Phase Offensive of the Korean War (or the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, as it’s known locally) and tells the story of the People’s Volunteer Army entering North Korea for the titular battle which was a turning point in the conflict. It broke several single-day box office records over the weekend and Maoyan is predicting an RMB 4.59B ($714M) finish for the full run; this would make it the second biggest Chinese film of the year.
Daniel Craig’s last turn as James Bond heads to China on October 29, and, really, this weekend is all about Bond in terms of how we see international markets responding as the pandemic wanes.
Let’s turn back to this weekend. No Time To Die released in 54 Universal and MGM markets, ahead of its domestic bow on October 8. Conservative pre-weekend projections were in the $90M range, and Bond blasted past that. Why were the early estimates markedly lower? In part it’s because pandemic era box office has been ornery to predict and because the franchise tends to skew to older audiences who have shown some reticence to return to cinemas.
Ultimately, several areas overperformed versus expectations, including the UK, Germany, Scandinavia and the Netherlands. Moviegoers in the former turned out in droves — over the past week I spent in London it would have been impossible to swing a cat of any kind without being Bond-blasted. The home market has traditionally led 007 films box office-wise and this installment was no different with a fantastic $25.6M debut.
MORE…
Weekend Box Office Forecast: Venom: Let There Be Carnage, The Addams Family 2, & The Many Saints of Newark
This October’s box office has often been circled on the calendar as the start of the next phase in domestic box office recovery. With the month officially beginning this weekend, the time has come for Venom: Let There Be Carnage, The Addams Family 2, and The Many Saints of Newark to begin making that important impression on moviegoers and the industry at large as 2021 enters its final quarter.
Sony’s Venom sequel is the obvious frontrunner commanding the lion’s share of attention this weekend. Following multiple delays during the course of the pandemic, few movies have been shuffled around the calendar as many times as the anticipated follow-up to one of 2018’s autumn breakouts.
As discussed in our recent analysis, Venom scored a then-October-record $32.5 million opening weekend and crushed all expectations as part of one of the strongest fall box office slates in history. The Tom Hardy-franchise is back with a core younger demographic to drive it, a crucial audience that has represented a high share of returning patrons at cinemas during the pandemic rebound.
Comparisons are still limited, but Let There Be Carnage has been trending strong in the final days before release. Combined social media impressions and pre-sale gauges have the Sony sequel far ahead of the pace of August’s The Suicide Squad (which opened to a disappointing $26.2 million), while not far behind that of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. The latter, of course, has been a bastion of the post-summer market following a Labor Day record $75.4 million three-day opening and subsequently strong chase weekends.
Carnage is also comparable to this year’s F9 in some ways. The latter franchise has been known to pace more back-loaded in audience interest and pre-sale activity relative to many comic book franchises. However, the first Venom was an outlier in that regard itself thanks to diverse audience appeal of a makeup slightly different from Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. (Remember: Venom is part of Sony’s off-shoot Marvel franchise and, to this point anyway, has no substantial connection to the Disney & Marvel Studios franchise.)
Whether that back-loaded and casual audience turnout plays a factor again with Carnage, or if it proves to behave more in line with a typical comic book sequel, is one of the few remaining questions. Reviews had also been a question with an embargo in place until two days before opening, but the sequel is standing at 74 percent from 53 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes as of early Thursday afternoon. Of this film’s many strengths, appeal to young male audiences is on fire — a crowd the first film dominated with via a 60 percent gender split, coupled with an overall 71 percent under-25 demographic breakdown.
The first Venom was more of a crowd-pleaser than a critics’ darling, but it was also front-loaded in its box office run with considerably less competition in later weekends than Carnage will face. The trade-off this time, though, is the long awaited first appearance of Carnage, played by Woody Harrelson, a very popular character within comic book fandom.
In terms of tracking against the predecessor itself, Carnage hasn’t been at the same level but it seems to be retaining a large block of the target audience interest that boosted Venom. Last minute surges in pre-sales in the middle of this week are also boosting expectations even more, but it’s important to remember we’re still in the midst of an evolving recovery market.
Of note, the first film had an inflated Sunday due to Indigenous Peoples’ Day landing on Monday, meaning an extended weekend for teens in grade school. That won’t be the case this time as the holiday will land one week later on October 11.
With all of that in mind, however, it’s been nearly one full month since audiences had a brand new, widely appealing tentpole film to draw them to theaters. That should play to Carnage‘s favor in a major way this weekend despite the road ahead, including direct competition from films like No Time to Die (October 8), Halloween Kills (October 15), and Dune (October 22).
Sony is distributing the sequel at 4,225 domestic theaters, including all IMAX and Premium Large Format screens. Previews begin Thursday at 4 P.M., one hour earlier than the first film’s start time three years ago this same weekend. It will also be exclusive to movie theaters, marking yet another advantage for box office performance.
For a welcome change of pace, this weekend sees two other nationwide releases as counter-programmers to the main comic book sequel event. It’s arguably the most mainstream-friendly variety the industry has seen from a collection of new releases during the pandemic so far and is likely to rival or outperform the doubleheader of A Quiet Place Part II and Cruella over Memorial Day weekend.
Up first, United Artists Releasing is sending The Addams Family 2 to theaters in a day-and-date strategy that also sees the animated sequel streaming as a paid PVOD option at home. The latter move was only made in recent weeks as it became clear that parents and adult women remain the most cautious returning to theaters, in large part because children under the age of 12 aren’t yet eligible for vaccines. That’s obviously Addams’ core crowd, so any comparisons to the previous film’s $30.3 million opening weekend two years ago aren’t particularly useful or valid here.
Nevertheless, The Addams Family 2 is trending relatively well compared to recent animated releases. For parents and kids who are choosing to safely return to cinemas, the sequel presents one of the very few family options in the market lately. Brand awareness and a lack of competition helped Paramount’s PAW Patrol: The Movie beat expectations late in the summer with a $13.2 million debut (despite Regal not screening the film at its theaters) after the likes of The Boss Baby: Family Business and Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway captured similar box office results earlier in the summer.
Those are the most apropos comparison points for the Addams follow-up, but pent-up demand and increasing comfort level of audiences since those releases could arguably help it come in on the high end of expectations — especially with Halloween season in full swing as October begins.
Warner Bros. is also back at it this weekend with their prequel to The Sopranos series, The Many Saints of Newark.
As another day-and-date SVOD release, though, expectations have significantly diminished from what they once were. After the likes of Downton Abbey and Black Mass proved successful at the fall box office while courting a similar adult viewer base, recent Warner Bros. performances from Cry Macho, Reminiscence, and Those Who Wish Me Dead have shown that the target older audience has been opting to watch these movies for free at home on HBO Max.
Newark could outperform those films just by nature of being part of a well-known and respected intellectual property, but otherwise, its impact is increasingly expected to be diminished considering its based on a series fans already spent years dedicating to watch on their television screens.
Elsewhere this weekend, Lionsgate and Kingdom Story Company will release The Jesus Music at 249 locations, a film that has shown solid pre-sales signs in recent days, while NEON will open Titane at 562 theaters. Both, particularly the former, are contenders to crack the top ten this weekend.
Overall, the coming frame figures to be one of the busiest of the pandemic era yet. Only three weekends since March 2020 have exceeded $90 million combined at the box office, those being Labor Day weekend for Shang-Chi‘s release ($108.3 million), Black Widow‘s ($117.5 million) July debut frame, and F9‘s ($97.1 million) starting weekend in June.
Depending largely on Venom: Let There Be Carnage‘s ability to hit or exceed expectations, this weekend is on pace to rank somewhere among those three pandemic era benchmarks.
Forecast Ranges
The Addams Family 2
Opening Weekend Range: $13 – 18 million
Domestic Total Range: $40 – $60 million
The Many Saints of Newark
Opening Weekend Range: $7 – 12 million
Domestic Total Range: $15 – $35 million
Venom: Let There Be Carnage
Opening Weekend Range: $60 – 80 million
Domestic Total Range: $140 – $170 million
Weekend Forecast
Boxoffice projects this weekend’s top ten films will increase between 180 and 220 percent from last weekend’s $35.8 million top ten aggregate.
| Film | Distributor | 3-Day Weekend Forecast | Projected Domestic Total through Sunday, October 3 | Location Count | % Change from Last Wknd |
| Venom: Let There Be Carnage | Sony Pictures / Columbia | $71,000,000 | $71,000,000 | 4,225 | NEW |
| The Addams Family 2 | United Artists Releasing | $16,100,000 | $16,100,000 | 4,207 | NEW |
| The Many Saints of Newark | Warner Bros. Pictures | $9,000,000 | $9,000,000 | ~3,300 | NEW |
| Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings | Disney / Marvel Studios | $6,200,000 | $206,100,000 | 3,455 | -52% |
| Dear Evan Hansen | Universal Pictures | $2,800,000 | $12,200,000 | 3,364 | -62% |
| Free Guy | 20th Century Studios | $2,300,000 | $117,600,000 | 2,545 | -44% |
| Candyman | Universal Pictures | $1,500,000 | $59,200,000 | 1,745 | -41% |
| Jungle Cruise | Walt Disney Studios | $900,000 | $116,300,000 | 1,375 | -48% |
All forecasts subject to revision before the first confirmation of Thursday previews or Friday estimates from studios or alternative sources.
Theater counts are updated as confirmed by studios.
UA researchers find link between COVID deaths and snake venom
TUCSON, AZ — Snakes are starting to play a big role in COVID-19 research. Scientists from the University of Arizona have discovered an enzyme, similar to one found in rattlesnake venom, that could be driving COVID-19 deaths.
“We found evidence that there was an enzyme, a snake-like enzyme, in the blood of people who were in extraordinarily high levels,” says Dr. Floyd Chilton, the senior author of the study with the University of Arizona, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Scientists have worked on this study for the past year and a half. It was recently published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The snake-like enzyme is found in healthy people at low levels to prevent bacterial infections. In severe cases of COVID-19, it’s doing the opposite.
“These high levels of this enzyme are looking at those tissues in the organs and saying, ‘you look like a bacteria, let’s shred your membranes. Let’s put these organs out of their misery,’” says Dr. Chilton.
Dr. Chilton says what’s even more remarkable is where we can go from here in the fight against the pandemic.
“Can we come up with specific therapeutics that will not care which variant is coming toward it? Can we come up with specific therapies to address this devastating disease?” says Dr. Chilton.
Researchers explain that current clinical trials on snake bites are helping in those efforts. They can possibly repurpose some of the treatments being tested. This could one day result in a viable option, other than vaccines, to prevent death in severe patients.
“That allows us to take a precision medicine approach to the disease. We can go into clinical trials and choose the people who are at risk of this mechanism and then, specifically treat those people,” says Dr. Chilton.
Their hope, regarding the next step, is an international multi-center clinical trial. They are working with global organizations to see how they can make that possible.
ABC15 asked a rattlesnake expert for his take on the study.
“For something that is almost as universally loathed as rattlesnakes, it seems fitting and interesting and ironic, that the venom that they have in rattlesnakes, might be the key in getting out of this situation,” says Bryan Hughes, owner of Rattlesnake Solutions.
You can find more information on the study here.
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Brazilian viper venom may become tool in fight against COVID, study shows
SAO PAULO, Aug 30 (Reuters) – Brazilian researchers have found that a molecule in the venom of a type of snake inhibited coronavirus reproduction in monkey cells, a possible first step toward a drug to combat the virus causing COVID-19.
A study published in the scientific journal Molecules this month found that the molecule produced by the jararacussu pit viper inhibited the virus’s ability to multiply in monkey cells by 75%.
“We were able to show this component of snake venom was able to inhibit a very important protein from the virus,” said Rafael Guido, a University of Sao Paulo professor and an author of the study.
The molecule is a peptide, or chain of amino acids, that can connect to an enzyme of the coronavirus called PLPro, which is vital to reproduction of the virus, without hurting other cells.
A jararacussu snake, whose venom is used in a study against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), is seen at Butantan Institute in Sao Paulo, Brazil August 27, 2021. Picture taken August 27, 2021. REUTERS/Carla Carniel
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Already known for its antibacterial qualities, the peptide can be synthesized in the laboratory, Guido said in an interview, making the capture or raising of the snakes unnecessary.
“We’re wary about people going out to hunt the jararacussu around Brazil, thinking they’re going to save the world … That’s not it!” said Giuseppe Puorto, a herpetologist running the Butantan Institute’s biological collection in Sao Paulo. “It’s not the venom itself that will cure the coronavirus.”
Researchers will next evaluate the efficiency of different doses of the molecule and whether it is able to prevent the virus from entering cells in the first place, according to a statement from the State University of Sao Paulo (Unesp), which was also involved in the research.
They hope to test the substance in human cells but gave no timeline.
The jararacussu is one of the largest snakes in Brazil, measuring up to 6 feet (2 meters) long. It lives in the coastal Atlantic Forest and is also found in Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina.
Reporting by Leonardo Benassatto; Additional reporting by Pedro Fonseca; Editing by Bill Berkrot
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.