“Venom: The Last Dance” seems to have stumbled and face-planted on its way to box office glory.

This third movie in the saga of Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and his sassy alien sidekick, Venom, made $51 million in its U.S. debut—solid, but it’s no crowd-cheering slam dunk. Despite its first-place opening weekend, “Last Dance” is lagging behind its beefier older siblings and joining the ranks of comic book movies that seem to be missing the heroic box-office punch.

Sony’s Marvel movies just can’t seem to get the crowd hyped, and predicting their success these days feels as reliable as a coin toss. Sure, “Last Dance” could still get a lift globally, but here in the U.S., it’s gasping for air compared to its predecessors. For context, the first “Venom” movie in 2018 scored an $80 million weekend, and the sequel, “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” in 2021, chomped through $90 million on opening weekend. “Last Dance” was expected to do about $65 million, but, well, not even close.

It’s a bit of a head-scratcher, given Venom’s popularity. Once Spider-Man’s pesky foe, this alien symbiote has become a household name—on merch from mugs to collectible popcorn buckets. The Venom flicks have long been deemed “dumb fun” by critics, a combo that’s led them to pull in over $1 billion overall.  

But they’re in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe—not Disney’s MCU—making them a bit of an outlier. So far, these Spider-Man-adjacent films aren’t really bonding with audiences. “Madame Web” fizzled with $15.3 million earlier this year, falling below “Morbius,” which became so meme-worthy that Sony even re-released it, only for it to flop all over again.

Still, Sony’s animated Spider-Verse films have been big wins, raking in over $570 million domestically. Sony’s next big swing is “Kraven the Hunter,” aiming to make a splash in December (if it doesn’t get delayed again, of course).

“Last Dance” has added fuel to the fire that audiences may be over comic book movies. Sure, Marvel’s “Deadpool and Wolverine” took a victory lap this summer, but DC’s “Joker” sequel, “Folie à Deux,” bombed at its October opening, with early walkouts when, surprise— it turned out to be a musical!

As all these cinematic heroes wrestle for the box office throne, it’ll be interesting to see what happens next year when Marvel drops three new films, and DC’s universe gets a reboot under James Gunn. Will it be the dawn of a new comic-book-movie golden age, or just a few more duds in the ever-crowded superhero lineup?