How Morbius' Box Office Compares to Venom and the MCU
Morbius may have released to a harsh Rotten Tomatoes score, but like both Venom movies, that doesn't seem to have crushed its the box office chances, as the movie met pre-release box office expectations. While Sony's recent Marvel movies haven't seen box office hauls on par with Marvel Studios' MCU films, they've still performed surprisingly well at the box office, especially considering their harsh judgment by critics.
As the last studio with rights to Marvel characters outside of Marvel Studios, Sony's Spider-Man Universe is focusing on spin-off characters about some of Spider-Man's major villains, including Venom, Morbius, and the upcoming Kraven the Hunter. While the films now have a tangential multiverse connection to the MCU, the movies mostly exist in their own continuity, although the mechanism for MCU crossovers exists should the studios agree to utilize it; however, despite their MCU adjacent status, Sony's films haven't fared nearly as well when it comes to critics and the box office.
Despite the review ravaging and low Rotten Tomatoes scores, both Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage excelled at the box office, seemingly proving Marvel can exist on the big screen without the MCU (or good Rotten Tomatoes scores). Morbius still has a way to go before it'll be clear if it's a box office success, but there's a few things we can learn from its opening weekend box office numbers compared to Venom and the MCU.
Morbius's first-weekend box office haul of $39 million is in-line with the movie's $40 million expectations, but it's still less than half the opening weekend numbers for Venom ($80 million in 2018) and Venom: Let There Be Carnage ($90 million in 2021). While the box office haul is significantly reduced, it should be noted Venom is a far more popular character than Morbius, so a straight comparison between the movies may not be entirely fair, which is likely why Sony gave Morbius a significantly lower budget of $75 million, which is about 35 million lower than both Venom movies.
There were also a number of factors that could have negatively impacted Morbius' box office, from lingering pandemic concerns to multiple release date delays, although Venom: Let There Be Carnage faced both of those issues and was released at a time when audiences were even more concerned about COVID and still opened to $90 million. Morbius could still be a big box office success if ticket sales don't fall off too drastically in the coming weeks, although its Cinemascore, which is typically seen as an indicator of a movie's potential word-of-mouth, is only C+ compared to a B+ for both Venom movies.
With Spider-Man: No Way Home becoming one of the highest-grossing movies of all time and other MCU releases regularly hitting $1 billion before the pandemic, the MCU's typical box office opening is far higher than Morbius or any of the Sony Marvel movies; although, Venom: Let There Be Carnage saw a higher opening weekend and higher total gross than every MCU release in 2021 other than Spider-Man: No Way Home. The Venom movies opened higher than a fair number of MCU solo films at the domestic box office, but if they were ranked against the MCU's opening weekend box office, Venom: Let There Be Carnage would rank in 18th place, Venom would rank in 21st place, and Morbius would rank dead last.
Morbius' $39 million opening is over $16 million lower than the MCU's lowest opening weekend, The Incredible Hulk at $55 million. Again, Morbius is likely less well known than most MCU heroes, including The Incredible Hulk, and since it didn't benefit from cameos from Iron Man or Doctor Strange or any other major character as Marvel often does to bolster more obscure characters, it's not shocking that its box office opened lower than most MCU movies, especially considering its budget is lower than any of the movies in the MCU.
While Sony surely would have loved for Morbius to open similarly to the Venom movies at the box office, Morbius doesn't need to match Venom's box office to be a success. With a budget of just $75 million, Morbius cost around $35 million less to make than the $110 budget for both Venom movies, which is in the same ballpark as its $41 million lower opening box office weekend compared to Venom. Granted, that doesn't mean it will finish its box office run $35 million below Venom, as it will likely continue to earn less than Venom each week, progressively widening the box office gap.
The rough rule of thumb to determine profitability is that a movie breaks even when box office revenue is greater than 2.5x the budget to account for marketing, revenue sharing, and other factors. Using this measurement, the Venom movies would have broken even at around $275 million (which they easily surpassed), whereas Morbius only needs to earn $187 million to be profitable. Unfortunately, even if Morbius' legs are as strong as Venom's (they won't be without a miracle considering its lower reviews, audience score, and Cinemascore), it'll be highly dependent on international box office receipts to turn a profit.
Applying Venom's 2.66 multiplier to Morbius' $39 million opening weekend would result in a $103 million total domestic haul, leaving at least $84 million to international markets for the film to turn a profit. $84 million may not seem like a high bar for the international box office, but with continuing pandemic uncertainties and the lack of a release date for China, and the fact that Morbius is sure to have a worse multiplier than Venom, Morbius' path to profitability is cloudy at best.
Considering Morbius' multiple release date delays also undermined its marketing campaign and Kraven the Hunter is already underway, Sony isn't likely to judge the value of the entirety of the Sony Spider-Man Universe by Morbius' critical or box office reception. With Sony's partnership on the Spider-Man films and teases for more MCU crossover (particularly with Venom), and the potential introduction of Spider-Man (Tom Holland or otherwise) on Sony's side of the continuity fence, Sony isn't likely to make any drastic strategy changes any time soon, especially considering how profitable their Spider-Man movie profit-sharing deal is with Marvel Studios.