Quote from: monkeylove on Jun 03, 2017, 01:28:42 PM
Quote from: Robopadna on May 31, 2017, 01:39:20 PM
I think there was confusion over the phrasing when someone said 'a horror action movie'. They meant why would you want a horror action movie to be like 2001, not that they thought 2001 was a horror action movie.
This is pretty non box office related though I guess.
The fact that the Alien films are horror-action means they cannot be like 2001, which is not horror-action. But the producers thought that they could mix the two, which is why the "ancient astronaut" lore and weighty dialogue (together with all sorts of literary references and purty scenery) were added. And I think that affected box office performance.
In the end what hurt box office is the Alien. Prometheus was a franchise mostly free of that association and profited for it. Covenant is the example of what happen when you take a successful film with sequel possibility and listen to a vocal minority of fans. Few people in North America wanted another Alien film. Box office totals reflect that. Word of mouth boiled down to "Oh another Alien flick" and indifference.
Maybe Prometheus 2 would also have crashed and burned. Maybe it is the market or whatever other factors you wanna bring into it. Personally, I think they made a not so great film about a creature people are tired of seeing.
Just for fun I looked up other played out Creature feature characters. Alien: Covenant with a bigger star and a better director isn't doing much better than either the Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th remakes domestically while costing a huge amount more.
This is just domestic comparisons. Alien is doing way better overseas without question.
Nightmare on Elm Street 2010: $63,075,011/35m budget
Friday the 13th 2009: $65,002,019/19m budget
Alien Covenant: $64,334,484/97m budget
Note: Those numbers are not including inflation, which brings Ft13 to over 74m and Nightmare to 71m in 2017 dollars.
