How ‘Venom’ can make money and still be a bomb

We are five days from the domestic debut of Sony’s Venom. Sure enough, producers Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach made headlines on Friday by touting the next movie in the Spider-Verse. Yes, if Venom is a crowd-pleasing hit, we’ll get a Jared Leto-starring Morbius movie. Regardless of whether anyone actually wants such a thing, it’s probably a better pre-release narrative than Tom Hardy lamenting 40 minutes of deleted scenes and the filmmakers justifying a PG-13 rating. But that puts additional pressure on the current Sony superhero offering. The $100 million-budgeted superhero flick isn’t just tasked with making money. No, it’s primary goal is to create the presumption of interest not just in itself or even a Venom and Carnage in the Big Balloon Adventure, but in a whole cinematic universe featuring Spider-Man villains.

What this means is that it’s not enough for Venom to be a hit. It’s not even enough for Venom to be a passable matinee entertainment. No, for Venom to be considered a success, it has to be good enough to get folks excited about the notion of multiple Sony-produced superhero/anti-hero movies based on various Spider-Man villains.