NEW YORK – “Venom: The Last Dance” showed less bite than expected at the box office, grossing $51 million in its opening weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday, significantly less than the alien symbiote franchise’s previous entries.

Projections for the third “Venom” film from Sony Pictures had been closer to $65 million. More troubling, however, was the departure from the first two “Venom” films. The 2018 original debuted with $80.2 million, while the 2021 follow-up, “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” opened with $90 million despite theaters still in recovery mode during the pandemic.

“The Last Dance” starring Tom Hardy as a journalist who shares his body with an alien entity also voiced by Hardy, could still turn a profit for Sony. Its production budget, which did not take into account promotion and marketing, was about $120 million—significantly less than most comic book films.

But “The Last Dance” is also performing better overseas. Internationally, “Venom: The Last Dance” grossed $124 million over the weekend, including $46 million over five days of release in China. That’s good enough for one of the best international weekends of the year for a Hollywood release.

Still, neither reviews (36% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) nor audience scores (a franchise-low “B-” CinemaScore) have been good for the film scripted by Kelly Marcel and Hardy, and directed by Marcel.

The low weekend for “Venom: The Last Dance” also likely ensures that superhero movies will have their lowest-grossing year in a dozen years, not counting the pandemic year of 2020, according to David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a Franchise Entertainment newsletter.

Following on the heels of “Joker: Folie à Deux” flop, Gross estimates that by 2024 superhero movies will gross around $2.25 billion worldwide. The only upcoming entry is Marvel’s “Kraven the Hunter,” which will be released on December 13. Even with the $1.3 billion of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” the genre overall hasn’t dominated like it once did. In 2018, for example, superhero movies accounted for more than $7 billion in global ticket sales.

Last week’s best movieParamount Pictures’ horror sequel “Smile 2,” dropped to second place with $9.4 million. That brings the two-week total to $83.7 million worldwide.

The biggest success story of the weekend may have been “Conclave,” the papal thriller starring Ralph Fiennes and directed by Edward Berger (“All Quiet on the Western Front”). The Focus Features release, a major Oscar contender, opened with $6.5 million in 1,753 theaters.

That put “Conclave” in third place, making it the rare adult-oriented drama to break away theatrically. About 77% of ticket buyers were over 35, Focus said. With a strong opening and stellar reviews, “Conclave” was able to continue to gain momentum with moviegoers and Oscar voters alike.