The anti-hero blockbuster "Venom" swept the Chinese box office last weekend, taking a record 766 million yuan (US$110 million) within three days, Sony Pictures announced.

The film, developed from Sony's Marvel Cinematic Universe, broke a number of box office records in China, including the best ticket pre-sales, the best midnight takings, the best opening day and the fastest to reach US$100 million for a stand-alone superhero film. It was the second highest debut ever for a superhero film in China, behind only "Avengers: Infinity War," and it was Sony's best showing in the market, as well as the fifth best for an imported film.

The opening weekend performance of "Venom" in China was 37.28 percent higher than the film's opening weekend in its American home market, which produced US$80.26 million. 

The opening gross of "Venom" was nearly the total theater run of the latest film of Venom's main foe Spider-Man. The latter, "Spider-Man: Homecoming", grossed 774 million yuan (US$111 million) last year. Interestingly, "Venom" originally featured an extended clip from upcoming "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" as a post-credits scene. However, in Chinese theatrical version, the clip was excised. 

IMAX China announced on Monday that "Venom" generated approximately 70 million yuan (US$10.05 million) during its opening weekend on more than 500 IMAX theaters in China, setting a new record in the format for best opening weekend in November. "This performance [in China] once again demonstrates the strong audience demand to experience blockbuster films with spectacular visual and sound presentations in the most immersive way - IMAX," said Greg Foster, CEO of IMAX Entertainment and senior executive vice president, IMAX Corp.

Chinese audiences obviously were not deterred by the poor reviews of American critics for Ruben Fleischer's film. On the ticketing app Maoyan, its score was as high as 9.4/10 from over 340,000 moviegoers, while on another movie rating website, Douban.com, it received good score of 7.4/10 from more than 110,000 users. The box office sweep of "Venom" also proved unaffected by China's Singles Day online shopping bonanza on Sunday, Nov. 11. 

The China boost powered "Venom" to cross the US$600-million mark and shot it back to the top of the global box office chart. Its worldwide total now stands at US$673 million.

Before "Venom," Chinese film market had been very slack, with the total gross of all films screened in the country reaching just 30 million yuan (US$4.33 million) on Nov. 7, the lowest single-day result for four years. No wonder "Venom" exploded onto the market, which had been thirsting for blockbusters for a long time after most domestic and foreign films screened in the country failed to live up to the expectations after National Day on Oct. 1.

The overwhelming triumph of "Venom" should also be credited to the sizable investment and marketing muscle of its Chinese partner Tencent, the internet giant that promoted the film on its various platforms. Even Sanford Panitch, president of Columbia Pictures, came to Tencent's annual press event in September to promote the film.  

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