While it seemed like it may have been a close race going into the weekend, it ended up being a very easy victory for Venom, which topped virtually all expectations with an excellent $80 million in its opening. A Star is Born was no slouch in second, however, as it rang up an impressive $42.6 million since its early previews. Meanwhile, The Hate U Give posted some solid numbers in its limited release.

Venom had a lot to deal with heading into the weekend; namely, mixed responses to the trailer and awful critical reception. For one reason or another, however, it still managed to beat out all expectations with $80 million. Additionally, its worldwide start was a fantastic $205 million, against a budget of just $100 million. This is a massive win for Sony, considering they’ve been trying to launch a franchise like this for years, yet this was their first real win.

The question is where does Venom go from here? Initially, it was expected to be extremely front loaded, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. Word of mouth was fine at a B+ Cinemascore, and it only dropped 19% on Saturday. This would signify that audiences were generally okay with what they got, and that it may play out closer to a traditional superhero title than expected. If it holds similarly to Suicide Squad, it’ll get to around $195 million. If it’s closer to Spider-Man: Homecoming, it could be at around $225 million when all is said and done. Overall, a domestic total of over $200 million seems like a solid bet, albeit not guaranteed. Props to Sony for their effective marketing campaign, giving them their first mega hit since last years Jumanji.

Moving into second was A Star is Born, which would’ve been making a lot more headlines had it come out on any other weekend; it may not have been on par with Venom, but $42 million in a weekend for a non-franchise R rated drama is still immensely impressive. The film started off with $1.55 million from sneak previews on Tuesday and Wednesday, held in premium formats like Dolby Cinema. It then pulled in around $3.2 million from its actual Thursday previews, and a total $15.8 million on ‘Friday’. Before the weekend, the safe thing to predict was that Venom would win the weekend, but A Star is Born would win in the long run, but that no longer seems too likely; with such a disparity on opening weekend and Venom not looking to be as front loaded as expected, it would take a minor miracle for A Star to end up over $200 million.

While Venom probably won’t show much more than a 2.5x multiplier, the question of how long A Star is Born will stick around is what’s on everyone’s mind in the industry. Both of the last two successful musicals, The Greatest Showman and La La Land held exceptionally well, but neither of those killed it on opening weekend and had the same fan-based rush as this did. While it does have plenty of Oscar buzz, the awards season isn’t for several months from now. That’s a very long time for one film to try and stick around, but if any film can do it, it’s likely this one. Reception has been very positive, with an A Cinemascore and a 91% Rotten Tomatoes score. With a budget of just $36 million, this is a big win for Warner Brothers, and now it’s just a question of how long they can maintain this buzz.

In third, Smallfoot dipped a light 35% for a $14.9 million sophomore frame. Night School took a rather hard 55% hit, for a ten day total of $46 million. Last weekends other opener, Hell Fest, took a sharp 60% hit, for a running total of just $8.8 million.

Opening in limited release, The Hate U Give opened in 36 locations to the tune of $500K. This translates to a reasonably good $13.8K per theater average. This makes sense, as the title definitely seemed like something more suited for general audiences than the arthouse crowd, and will have another weekend in limited release before it goes nationwide on the 19th. Also in limited release, Free Solo cracked the top 12 in just 41 locations, translating to a per theater average just under Give, though arguably more impressive considering a documentary about mountain climbing is not exactly as marketable.

One other title actually opened in wide release this weekend, though if you’ve never heard of it, you’re clearly not alone; Shine opened in 609 locations (just over the threshold to be considered wide), yet averaged a pathetic $359 per location, adding up to an opening of just $218K. This is even worse than Beautifully Broken from a few months ago, which opened in 651 locations with just $589K – still almost triple what this did.

Disney expanded Christopher Robin back into over 1,600 locations in an effort to get it past the century mark, but unfortunately it took in just $455K for the weekend. This isn’t horribly surprising considering the film has been out since early August, and audiences have already found several other family-oriented titles to choose from.