Alien: Covenant Box Office Performance

[Denton Smalls]

I think it's normal for most films to drop by 40-50% at least after one weekend, especially rated R ones. Hopefully A:C is able to make its money through longevity. If it stays solid for a month, we'll be in good shape. It won't make Deadpool money but that movie was a unicorn amongst horses.

It's good for Covenant (but bad for Johnny Depp) that Pirates isn't tracking well, but it will most likely pull big numbers from being pg-13 and more kid-friendly.

Since the home media sales don't go into effect for a couple months, I'm guessing we won't know if the next sequel is greenlit until late fall or Christmas at the earliest.

Covenant and pirates aren't after the same audiences really. Plus pirates, last I checked, is tracking for about 80 million. Bay watch is tracking for 40. Things can change but covenant doesn't show signs of holding.

Bummer. I'm actually shocked because I thought A:C would blow Prometheus out of the water.

Does anyone here wonder if this film would have done much better had Prometheus not preceded it?

[juxtapose]

it would have faired better if it did not have a 5 year waiting period. .and if covenant came first. .definately. .i mean it made prometheus almost not exist at all. .david could have been a new character and the engineers might have well never been introduced. . Same goes for shaw. .i loved the enginees. .they were uber hot. .but not essential. .

[Kane's other son]

Maybe it would do better if it was sold as a Prometheus sequel and not just another alien movie.

There hasn't been a big alien hit since 1986 and the last few movies to feature alien in the title were excrement. The trailers hid David and all mentions of Prometheus. General audience had no idea that this is a continuation of the story and not a whole new one. Marketing was pretty much: "This one has aliens. You like  aliens. Right?"

[Robopadna]

Maybe it would do better if it was sold as a Prometheus sequel and not just another alien movie.

There hasn't been a big alien hit since 1986 and the last few movies to feature alien in the title were excrement. The trailers hid David and all mentions of Prometheus. General audience had no idea that this is a continuation of the story and not a whole new one. Marketing was pretty much: "This one has aliens. You like  aliens. Right?"

It's weird.  I think they should have gone forward with the sequel to Prometheus but for whatever reason Fox was dead convinced that the problem with Prometheus under performing was the lack of Aliens.  I just think they had some really bad marketing around Prometheus that also made it murky as to how connected IT would have been to Alien.

By deciding it HAD to be all Aliens now they created a weird situation where they could certainly push that in all of the ads (and they absolutely made it clear) but they also HAD to do SOMETHING to wrap up loose Prometheus threads.  So it had that hanging on to it and people not expecting that probably weren't fans of it.

[Anthony]

Does anyone know the total cost of marketing?

[Kane's other son]

Covenant is the sequel to Prometheus. It just wasn't sold as a sequel to Prometheus because Fox marketing was convinced people wanted aliens, aliens and more aliens.

It's incredible that they basically hid David from ads -and therefore the premise of the film, presenting the movie as a reboot of alien. They started pushing the Prometheus angle with the Crossing, when they got early tracking and realised that the general audience didn't respond to marketing.

[Ingwar]

Maybe it would do better if it was sold as a Prometheus sequel and not just another alien movie.

There hasn't been a big alien hit since 1986 and the last few movies to feature alien in the title were excrement. The trailers hid David and all mentions of Prometheus. General audience had no idea that this is a continuation of the story and not a whole new one. Marketing was pretty much: "This one has aliens. You like  aliens. Right?"

It's weird.  I think they should have gone forward with the sequel to Prometheus but for whatever reason Fox was dead convinced that the problem with Prometheus under performing was the lack of Aliens.

Yeah. Fox f**ked up badly. Problem with Prometheus is not lack of Aliens. It's the script in general. They should have done proper Prometheus sequel instead of doing Alien prequel. They must be pissed off now but who cares? I don't. Not my money. Will we ever see Covenant sequel? I doubt that.

[Jonesy1974]

Maybe it would do better if it was sold as a Prometheus sequel and not just another alien movie.

There hasn't been a big alien hit since 1986 and the last few movies to feature alien in the title were excrement. The trailers hid David and all mentions of Prometheus. General audience had no idea that this is a continuation of the story and not a whole new one. Marketing was pretty much: "This one has aliens. You like  aliens. Right?"

It's weird.  I think they should have gone forward with the sequel to Prometheus but for whatever reason Fox was dead convinced that the problem with Prometheus under performing was the lack of Aliens.

Yeah. Fox f**ked up badly. Problem with Prometheus is not lack of Aliens. It's the script in general. They should have done proper Prometheus sequel instead of doing Alien prequel. They must be pissed off now but who cares? I don't. Not my money. Will we ever see Covenant sequel? I doubt that.

I'm not sure what a 'proper' sequel to Prometheus would be but I don't think it would make any difference to the numbers. I think the damage had already been done with regards to Prometheus.

[Kane's other son]

Covenant is a proper sequel to Prometheus.

[Salt The Fries]

Covenant is a proper film!

[Ingwar]

Covenant is a proper sequel to Prometheus.

No. It's not. Prometheus 2 was planned to be about Shaw and David.

Scott said once:

I know where it's going. I know that to keep [David] alive is essential and to keep [Elizabeth] alive is essential and to go where they came from, not where I came from, is essential.

Because [the Engineers] are such aggressive f**kers ... and who wouldn't describe them that way, considering their brilliance in making dreadful devices and weapons that would make our chemical warfare look ridiculous? So I always had it in there that the God-like creature that you will see actually is not so nice, and is certainly not God. As she says, 'This is not what I thought it was going to be, and I think we should get the Hell out of here or there won't be any place to go back to.'

That's not necessarily planted in the ground at the tail end of the third act, but I knew that's kind of where we should go, because if we've opened up this door — which I hope we have because I certainly would like to do another one – I'd love to explore where the hell [Dr. Shaw] goes next and what does she do when she gets there, because if it is paradise, paradise can not be what you think it is. Paradise has a connotation of being extremely sinister and ominous.

Good read: http://collider.com/alien-covenant-original-story-prometheus-2/

[Salt The Fries]

http://www.cine-directors.net/boxoff.htm

Second week stats from France. It doesn't show the total gross but number of admissions.

[Jonesy1974]

Covenant is a proper sequel to Prometheus.

No. It's not. Prometheus 2 was planned to be about Shaw and David.

Scott said once:

I know where it's going. I know that to keep [David] alive is essential and to keep [Elizabeth] alive is essential and to go where they came from, not where I came from, is essential.

Because [the Engineers] are such aggressive f**kers ... and who wouldn't describe them that way, considering their brilliance in making dreadful devices and weapons that would make our chemical warfare look ridiculous? So I always had it in there that the God-like creature that you will see actually is not so nice, and is certainly not God. As she says, 'This is not what I thought it was going to be, and I think we should get the Hell out of here or there won't be any place to go back to.'

That's not necessarily planted in the ground at the tail end of the third act, but I knew that's kind of where we should go, because if we've opened up this door — which I hope we have because I certainly would like to do another one – I'd love to explore where the hell [Dr. Shaw] goes next and what does she do when she gets there, because if it is paradise, paradise can not be what you think it is. Paradise has a connotation of being extremely sinister and ominous.

Good read: http://collider.com/alien-covenant-original-story-prometheus-2/

But things change and evolve over time. Covenant is a sequel to Prometheus, it's just not the sequel you'd hoped for.

Had they made the film as originally intended I don't think it would have made any difference to the BO numbers because the damage had already been done and that idea would be a harder sell to the general public. It would have also required a much bigger budget

[Robopadna]

Covenant is a proper sequel to Prometheus.

It isn't really.  It's one of the bigger hand waves away of the previous movie I have seen.  It doesn't care about virtually any of the ideas in Prometheus or one of the two major characters.  It almost relegated the entire species of Prometheus' antagonist down to a line of dialogue (as it is we got a 30 second clip of them washing their hands clean of having to touch them again)....

And, perhaps biggest of all, Prometheus wanted nothing really to do with Aliens...  this one is establishing itself as clearly having a lot to do with them.

It happens after Prometheus in sequential order and it does indeed try to neatly wrap all ties to that movie up in a few minutes but it is hardly a proper sequel in nearly any sense.

[Protozoid]

Prometheus did better because it was better, fresher, and had broader appeal.

Covenant is ranking because fewer people want to see an Alien sequel than a standalone SciFi epic by Ridley Scott. Scott should have done Prometheus 2, or The Forever War, or even Blade Runner 2049. Another Alien movie is something that only hardcore Alien fans wanted,the same vocal minority that is trying to skew reality by spamming the internet with their impressions that Prometheus was a bad film that nobody liked. Fox should not listen to the Alien fans any more. There is no gain for them to make the effort. Tom Rothman, Damon Lindelof, andScott were right to take Prometheus in a new direction. They would have saved the franchise if they had continued. Fox effed this up.