Predicting The Success Of The Next 10 Major Comic Book Movies

Predicted Rotten Tomatoes Score: 55% Predicted Box Office: $375m

Many people's biggest, and entirely valid, concern regarding Venom is Sony. Tom Hardy playing the title character backed by Riz Ahmed, Michelle Williams and Woody Harrelson in supporting roles is undoubtedly a tantalizing prospect, but the studio have shown on numerous occasions that they have no clue how to properly handle the Marvel characters at their disposal.

With the wildly inconsistent Ruben Fleischer behind the camera, four credited writers who have been responsible for duds like The 5th Wave, The Dark Tower, Fifty Shades of Grey and Gangster Squad between them and the ominous presence of the notoriously hands-on Avi Arad as producer, this thing could really go either way.

R-rated comic book movies have been performing relatively well at the box office in recent years, but if the final product isn't up to scratch then Venom could very well struggle commercially. Even with the presence of the Marvel brand, it would be foolish to expect the project to reach Deadpool or even Logan-type numbers given they were both technically spin-offs from the well-established X-Men franchise.

The ballpark that Venom should be aiming for at the bare minimum is the realm occupied by similarly stylish and violent adaptations like Wanted and the Kingsman franchise, which wound up earning between $341.4m and $414.4m respectively despite reviews that spanned the entire spectrum from celebratory to vitriolic. If Venom maintains its R-rating, then it also has the entire marketplace virtually sewn up for the whole of October bar the usual front-loaded horror offerings that drop around Halloween.