Disney-Sony Standoff Ends Marvel Studios Involvement In ‘Spider-Man'

[Zeitgeist]

yeah, the "venom only did well cos people think he's cool" is dangerously close to "spider-man only sells because he's a flagship character with +1 slott immunity".

I think the bigger issue is that both arguments seem to have the conviction that “I didn’t like it, and my friends didn’t like it, therefore NO ONE liked it.”

I don't think you can at all underestimate the draw of Venom as a character and the appeal fans saw in seeing him realised 'properly' on the screen for the first time. How many tickets sold can be attributed to that curiousity/fervor I dunno; I'm sure perceived MCU connections helped a great deal also.
But vocal audience reaction, reactions we all could see out there, was overall decidedly mixed so I don't see many other explanations for it's success other than there being a silent majority that ate it up in spite of what we know

Silly **** just sells, sometimes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯