Sony/Columbia’s “Venom: The Last Dance” isn’t headed for a “Joker: Folie a Deux”-style disaster, but it’s also far behind its predecessors in the U.S. with an estimated domestic opening weekend of $52 million. from 4,131 locations after a $22 million opening day.

That’s short of the $65 million projections for the Marvel anti-hero movie and well below the $80 million opening weekend for the first “Venom” in 2018.

On the other hand, overseas grosses are looking very good with $72.8 million so far through Friday and an estimated $128 million through Sunday, which would give the film a $180 million global launch. With a production budget of $120 million — well below “Joker 2” and many other contemporary comic book movies — “Venom 3” still has a chance to make a decent theatrical profit if it continues to gain international traction.

As for the softer showing in the U.S., it could be possible that the Yankees-Dodgers World Series, the first involving both the top markets of New York and Los Angeles since 1981, has some impact on walk-up traffic. However, the early audience reception for the film is not as strong as previous “Venom” films, which could receive negative reviews from critics.

While Parents and Kids gave “Venom 3” a 5/5 on PostTrak, the overall rating on CinemaScore received a B-, below the B+ given to the last two “Venom” films. We’ve seen in the past that even a mediocre CinemaScore rating for a wide release can be a sign of bad legs going forward, so we’ll see how “The Last Dance” fares next weekend, when it will be pitted against a number of special editions such as Searchlight’s “A Real Pain” and adult fare like Sony/TriStar’s “Here.”

More to come…