Alien: Covenant was released in its last major market, Japan, on Friday the 15th of September. According to Box Office Mojo, the film opened with a debut of $2.6 million.
“Fox also saw Alien: Covenant launch in its final international market with a $2.6 million debut in Japan bringing the film’s international cume to $162 million. Covenant’s $236.3 global total ranks it as the second largest film in the Alien franchise globally, though it remains $167.1 million behind Prometheus.”
For comparison, Prometheus opened in Japan with $3.8 million and would go on to gross $21.8 million. Alien: Covenant’s current worldwide taking stand at $236.3 with it’s biggest foreign market being China where it took $45.9 million.
Alien: Covenant opens with $2.6 million in Japan.
Today also sees the release of Alien: Covenant on home entertainment for the United Kingdom. If you enjoyed the film, be sure to head out and pick up your Blu-ray or DVD copy.
Keep a close eye on Alien vs. Predator Galaxy for the latest on Alien: Covenant! You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to get the latest on your social media walls. You can also join in with fellow Alien fans on our forums!
And that's fine, tbh.
Prometheus kinda felt like it was wasting some of its
budget in unmemorable scenes like the sandstorm
or the scrapped cgi-Mutant-Fifield
Keep it focused, keep it claustrophobic, plz.
But also keep it R-Rated, plz.
plz?
plz.
Good point. I can see Fox pushing Scott either take the rating or budget hit for them to green-light Awakening.
Have you considered that maybe Blade Runner (which bombed when originally released) and Alien aren't as popular as Star Wars or comic book films?
Nah screw that! It's much easier to just insult the general audience and bring up completely unrelated films.
Mind you, I really liked Blade Runner 2049, but it was never going to be a huge hit.
It's unfortunate how modern audiences just want their endless comic book movies and Star Wars retreads.
After Blade Runner, it's a good possibility that hard Science Fiction is sadly going out, and Covenant was the precursor for things to come.
Do you still hold the opinion that Covenant, which got pretty decent reviews, failed to crack $100 million because it was "bad" and not because adult sci-fi is unfortunately not a hot commodity in today's infantile cinematic environment?
I think there is plenty that can be done in the Alien franchise with the Engineers+black goo creatures+out of control androids+the nasty Weyland company.
New movies can have broader science fiction stories (like Star Trek).
Can money be made in the future with an Alien / Engineer universe?
It's possible. The budget just needs to be kept down as Ridley did with "Covenant" (which has allowed the box office to reach about 2.5 times the production budget).
Sea of Sorrows plasma rifles anyone?
Frwap. Fry half a city with one of those puppies.
I'm waiting for plasma rifles a'la Fallout.
I don't care because after the prequels the series is done. There is nothing more logically you can do but fan service and reboots. Oh sure, you could do hundreds of different things, but most of those won't make money.
They'll likely go on to Plan B :
Ripley's mom and Colonial Marines with lots of pulse rifles.
Thanks for confirming my post about Stacey Snider greenlighting a sequel, I guess?
Hammer. Nail. Head.
lolnope. Since the story for Covenant II was already written, she's obviously not too keen on it. Any new Alien films (whether Scott is involved or not) will likely try and distance themselves from Covenant even more than Covenant tried to distance itself from Prometheus.
"It was a disappointment, but I trust Ridley [Scott] and Emma [Watts] to know the right story when they find it.
-Stacey Snider Fox CEO"
The Search for Plot continues...
Fox CEO Stacey Snider said there will be a sequel to Covenant a few weeks ago.
I'm willing to bet he'll get to make his fanboy film after Scott wraps up the prequels. Just watch.
I hope Ridley is right about a sequel. "Covenant" is still making money in Japan, from disk sales and streaming.
Current worldwide box office is; $240,739,641.
And that is very close to 2.5 times its production budget (of $97 million).
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&id=alienparadiselost.htm
It will certainly be news to them!
12 (9) Alien: Covenant - 7 weeks on chart
Chart Run: 1-2-4-5-7-9-12
Source: http://www.homemediamagazine.com/category/hmm/news/research
- "Life" had its good / interesting moments. I encourage everyone here to see it.
Sadly its box office didn't do well which continues the trend where sci-if / horror is often neglected.
Look at "The Thing" from 1982. I think it's brilliant but it flopped at the box office.
- With "Covenant", I'm doing my part.
For my personal taste it was very enjoyable.
* As for studio finances, I agree that Hollywood accounting is a mysterious subject with some strange results.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting
* I can only guess at what Fox cares about with the box office performance of an Alien movie.
- My current speculation is that studios are hoping that a film will have box office at least 2x the production budget to avoid a flop.
If the box office gets to 2.5 x the production budget, then that's in the range where a sequel is possible.
* Current box office for "Covenant" has reached $240 million.
Worldwide: $240,085,541
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&id=alienparadiselost.htm
- Japan is doing well enough. I'm hopeful that the final box office will be at least in the $243 million range (~2.5 x the production budget).
Agree that we can pick a few traits similar to The Thing and Alien, perhaps then maybe it was the presentation and tension of the creature's threat that affected my perception. I mean, hard to find a review on Life that doesn't mention Alien. The Thing film or novella don't really describe the individual, but thinking it further, seems logical the alien cell of The Thing would need multiple functions like muscle and nerve. Anyway, this is off topic from the thread......so....
I still reference IMDB quite a bit and saw recently a top summer movie list, which Covenant was in the top ten, I think it was at 7. The breakdown of percentages, net profits, etc......we really don't know for sure. Popular numbers have been bounced around among us fantasy studio executives, such as the studio receives 40-50% of gross return, is the most popular. But we really don't know. No studio is required to comply with the percentages we fans came up with.
Both Life and Covenant I have already done replays. If I'm voluntarily doing a replay of a film, it must have made some sort of impact on me.
Hi SFMzone! (Biomechanoid) Good to hear from you.
Agreed that the alien in "Life" was interesting with each cell acting in some ways as a complete organism.
A variation of this idea, of an alien being composed of multiple independent organisms, was mentioned in "The Thing" (1982) by MacReady before he did his blood test.
In addition; I figure you've seen the classic "The Thing From Another World". In that movie the aliens first grow as small plants. Baby Calvin (the alien in "Life") reminded me of this.
Then in "Life" there is the mouth rape trope and fast growth (from "Alien").
* Overall imo "Life" is worth watching though I prefer "Alien Covenant" much more.
As you can see I'm still in the role of a defender of the Alien franchise as I was on IMDb. And so it continues... LOL!
PS. And back to the topic of the thread. "Covenant" has made enough money, compared with its production budget, that Fox is leaning towards making another Alien movie with Ridley at the helm. I'm hopeful since as you know I enjoy the franchise quite a bit.
Just means they are changing the script.
Yeah, less than 10%.
I'm sure the vast majority of potential viewers would rather wait for the official and professionally dubbed version rather than downloading illegal rips with iffy do-it-yourself subtitles.
Yeah but it doesn't look like they're interested in making a sequel to Covenant.
"It was a disappointment, but I trust Ridley [Scott] and Emma [Watts] to know the right story when they find it.
-Stacey Snider Fox CEO"
Seeing as Covenant's sequel was already written long before Snider made that comment it seems obvious they're not keen on going with it anymore. At least in it's current form.
Hey there bb-15, good to see you again. sfmzone of the old imdb days, here. What did you think of "Life" 2017?
I found the alien's physiology an intriguing concept. Each cell functioning simultaneously as a muscle cell, nerve cell, and photoreceptive cell. Or as Miranda put it, all muscle, all brain, all eye. I'm not claiming it's original. I'm just saying it's the first I've been exposed to that concept in cinema/literature.
1. Movie piracy can increase when a release of a legal film / TV series to a certain country is delayed. Japan's release dates are often later compared with Europe / US.
And piracy is easier when Blu-ray copies are available which can be ripped.
I'm not going to provide links because that could be seen as encouraging piracy which I do not condone.
- However, it is a fact that torrent copies of Alien Covenant exist and that Japanese subtitles are available for that.
- I believe that there are people in Japan who decided not to wait for A:C and they saw available pirated copies as an option and they knew the way to get Japanese subtitles for A:C torrents.
2. Legitimate copies of "Alien Covenant" are for sale in Japan right now.
https://www.amazon.co.jp/Alien-Covenant-Blu-ray-Import/dp/B071YLX9D7/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1506670235&sr=8-2&keywords=alien+covenant
A percent of the population does understand English and those could be lost ticket sales.
Also, I assume that enterprising people from Japan could rip the Blu-ray and then add Japanese subtitles.
I never said that about Fox or anyone else. I try my hardest to not use insulting language like that on web forums.
It is your privilege to label what I've written as "spin".
I don't see it that way. I believe that I am presenting facts which are relevant to the topic of this thread; 'Alien: Covenant Box Office Performance".
* Since the 1990s science fiction horror has never been in the top level, blockbuster territory.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films
- And Alien / AVP movies since "Aliens" have at best been mediocre with box office performance.
* Here are links about the long term box office performance of the science fiction/horror genre and the Alien franchise.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=scifihorror.htm
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=alien.htm
- The Alien franchise even at its peak (A1 & A2) was never at the level of Star Wars. Even "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" beats any Alien movie in terms of box office.
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Star-Trek#tab=summary
* Fox has said that A:C financially was a disappointment.
A studio is usually hoping to make as much money as the previous film in a franchise.
- When that doesn't happen, such as with A:C, the studio will often be disappointed.
* But the box office for "Alien Covenant" could have been worse.
Decent science fiction movies which had horror, "Sunshine" and "Life", were flops.
And so they didn't get sequels.
* Recently Fox is saying that they believe that Ridley could do another Alien franchise movie.
http://www.alien-covenant.com/news/fox-trust-ridley-scott-break-new-ground-with-alien-covenant-sequel
Why? One reason is because the box office for A:C is going to be about 2.5 x its production budget.
And why is that ratio of box office to production budget important?
Because several films with a box office / production budget ratio of about 2.5 x have gotten sequels.
(And if anyone here requests a list of such movies, I can post that.)
Yes, but most Japanese don't speak or even understand English. Even less understand Spanish, German, French etc. So their only option is to wait for the Japanese theatrical release which is in their own language. Fox isn't stupid you know.
Which is still below expectations no matter how you try and spin it. Fox already said the box office was "disappointing".
Exactly. People do want good content. However if you spent 100 millions + marketing cost + hire A-listed Hollywood star with A-listed director and well-known franchise movie flops then it's embarassing.
I'm not disappointed considering the situation.
"Alien Covenant" is on streaming. It is on Blu-ray.
It is easily available for those who have computers for streaming/shopping and the Japanese own computers.
- Only the most devoted Alien fans are going to pay to see it in a theater when it's so widely available.
* What A:C needs for its total box office is to get $4 million more in Japan and it will reach $242.5 million worldwide.
And that would put box office at 2.5 x its production budget which is reaching a decent milestone.
People just want good content.
Less than 10% of Japanese citizens understand or speak English. Less than 1% can speak it fluently.
All your base are belong to us.
Apparently, BluRay/DVD sales were very good for the movie. Do you suppose there's a correlation between the 2?
It should have been released in Japan months ago. Then the return would have been different.
-Windebieste.