NEW YORK (AP) — “Venom: The Last Dance” showed less bite than expected at the box office, raking in $51 million in its opening weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday, down significantly from previous entries in the alien symbiote franchise.

Projections for Sony Pictures’ third “Venom” film were closer to $65 million. More concerning, however, was the fallout from the first two “Venom” movies. The 2018 original debuted with $80.2 million, while the 2021 sequel, “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” opened with $90 million, even as theaters were still in recovery mode during the pandemic .

“The Last Dance”, with 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, excluding promotion and marketing, was around $120 million – far less than most comic book movies.

But “The Last Dance” is doing better overseas. Internationally, “Venom: The Last Dance” collected $124 million over the weekend, including $46 million in 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 CinemaScore “B-“) were good for the film written by Kelly Marcel and Hardy and directed by Marcel.

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

Following on his heels “Joker: Folie à Deux” flop, Gross estimates that superhero movies in 2024 will gross around $2.25 billion worldwide. The only upcoming entry is Marvel’s “Kraven the Hunter,” due out December 13th. Even with “Deadpool & Wolverine’s” $1.3 billion, the genre hasn’t generally dominated the way 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 with $9.4 million. That brings its two-week total to $83.7 million worldwide.

The biggest success story of the weekend might 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 to $6.5 million in 1,753 theaters.

This put “Conclave” in third place, making it the rare adult-oriented drama to make its mark theatrically. About 77 percent of ticket buyers were over 35, Focus said. With a strong opening and stellar reviews, “Conclave” could continue to gain momentum with moviegoers and Oscar voters alike.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. The final domestic figures will be published on Monday.

1. “Venom: The Last Dance,” $51 million.

2. “Smile 2,” $9.4 million.

3. “Conclave,” $6.5 million.

4. “Wild Robot,” $6.5 million.

5. “Living in Time,” $4.8 million.

6. “Terrifier 3,” $4.3 million.

7, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” $3.2 million.

8. “Anora,” $867,142.

9. “Piece by Piece,” $720,000.

10. “Transformers One,” $720,000.