It seems the higher opening weekend estimates were indeed correct. Alien: Romulus has toppled Deadpool & Wolverine from first place. The Alien film topped Friday’s domestic chart, earning $18 million including $6.5 million in previews. It is now projected to earn between $40 million to $42 million in its opening weekend.
The best opening for an Alien film belongs to 2012’s Prometheus which earned a first day of $21.4M in previews/Friday for a $51M opening weekend. For reference, here are the opening weekends of the previous Alien movies before inflation.
| Movie | Year | Opening Weekend | Budget |
| Alien | 1979 | $3.5M | $11M |
| Aliens | 1986 | $10M | $18.5M |
| Alien 3 | 1992 | $19M | $50M |
| Alien Resurrection | 1997 | $16M | $75M |
| AvP | 2004 | $38M | $60M |
| AvP Requiem | 2007 | $10M | $40M |
| Prometheus | 2012 | $51M | $130M |
| Alien Covenant | 2017 | $36M | $97M |
| Alien: Romulus | 2024 | $41.5M | $80M |
Alien: Romulus is doing well overseas, particularly in China. It grossed $26M overseas on Friday, with a projection of a $60M opening internationally. This gives Alien: Romulus a $100 million opening worldwide. Alien: Romulus is getting a B+ CinemaScore, which is better than Alien: Covenant‘s and Prometheus’s B.
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With over 225 million worldwide, the movie is already in the black.
30% of the eligible spend in Hungary (which wouldn't include the cast's fee, Fede's fee, Legacy Effects fee, ADI's fee, post production or pre production done outside the country, etc) gets refunded through government incentives.
So the production cost has already made back some of its money. But they obviously spent a lot of money on advertising, and that also needsto be recouped
The budget of the movie was 80 million, but because of Hungary tax laws, it actually was 50 or 60?
So how much does the movie need to make in order to reach the minimal box office requirements?
And let's be honest, most of it probably went on the colony.
I think this also prompted audiences to go to the cinema, "a new sequel of a well-known horror IP, the first time it is completely uncut"
Although I think this movie does not have any very explicit scenes lol
Grace is a ignorant.
Mission Impossible 7 made 565 million , is a bomb (300M budget ).
Furiosa: 173M
Hard time for blockbusters or movies in general.
350M is TOP historic Terror ( animation remove ).
Rank Film Worldwide gross
1 It $702,781,748
2 The Sixth Sense $672,806,292
3 I Am Legend $585,532,684
4 World War Z $540,007,876
6 Jaws $483,655,893
8 It Chapter Two $473,093,228
9 The Exorcist $428,824,083
10 Signs $408,250,578
11 Prometheus $403,354,469
13 The Nun $366,082,797
14 Hannibal $351,692,268
15 A Quiet Place $340,955,294
2024 Worldwide Box Office:
Inside Out 2 $1,649,011,114 $646,311,114 39.2% $1,002,700,000 60.8%
2 Deadpool & Wolverine $1,211,303,366 $577,203,366 47.7% $634,100,000 52.3%
3 Despicable Me 4 $885,397,740 $348,279,740 39.3% $537,118,000 60.7%
4 Dune: Part Two $711,844,358 $282,144,358 39.6% $429,700,000 60.4%
5 Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire $567,650,016 $196,350,016 34.6% $371,300,000 65.4%
6 Kung Fu Panda 4 $548,295,419 $193,590,620 35.3% $354,704,799 64.7%
7 Bad Boys: Ride or Die $401,952,028 $193,491,541 48.1% $208,460,487 51.9%
8 Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes $397,378,150 $171,130,165 43.1% $226,247,985 56.9%
9 Twisters $347,370,475 $248,670,475 71.6% $98,700,000 28.4%
10 A Quiet Place: Day One $261,130,553 $138,930,553 53.2% $122,200,000 46.8%
11 It Ends with Us $242,624,077 $120,824,077 49.8% $121,800,000 50.2%
12 The Garfield Movie $228,725,843 $91,920,124 40.2% $136,805,719 59.8%
13 Alien: Romulus $225,439,383 $72,639,383 32.2% $152,800,000 67.8%
https://variety.com/2024/film/news/china-box-office-alien-romulus-hollywoodn-1236117940/
I wouldn't put much stock in anything Grace Randolph says. She's f**king nuts and has said some truely heinous shit. Even industry people like James Gunn call her out for making stuff up.
Yeah but Grace is as mad as a box of cats. I wouldn't trust a thing she says. She said Mario movie was going to flop and everyone involved should be fired. It went on to make over 1.3 billion dollars
Alien: Romulus
DOMESTIC (32.2%)
$72,639,383
INTERNATIONAL (67.8%)
$152,800,000
WORLDWIDE
$225,439,383
Yep, "Covenant" is going down. "Prometheus" is also in Danger with China doing so great. All in all it will be the 2nd or 1st highest grossing Alien film in raw dollars. This should mean a sequel can be greenlit soon.
As others have noted, it's not just about box office alone. The real potential win here is putting Alien back on people's radar again which will feed into more eyes on Noah Hawley's series next year, as well as new video games, comics, etc.
If Romulus hits $300+ world-wide (definitely seems it will) and Noah's show is a success, they can just feed off each other's momentum with a new film in a few years.
All playing into the ultimate true end goal: Alien Isolation 2
Please Fede just abandon the the references and easter eggs and lean into all of your strengths.
For comparison, Covenant grossed 74 mil total DOM on a higher budget.
I think it's safe to say $300 million at least is now guaranteed.
Congratulations to Fede and Ridley. Really phenomenal job here. It's great to see the franchise back with a bang
The Chinese are going mad for it. Deadline say it looks like it's going to make $114 million at least in China alone.its not even opened in Japan yet. That comes in September and we know the Japanese are mad about Alien
Fantastic news.
That "harsh drop" between weekends, is that something to worry about or to be expected?
These China numbers are astronomical. I can see why Fede made that note. They are loving the film over there. Let's see if it can pull out a 2nd Weekend win here in the US but looking good worldwide.
Personally feel like this would be a terrific result, given how awfully frontloaded AvP, AvPR and Covenant were. We'll have to see how the weekend pans out from here...
https://x.com/luiz_fernando_j/status/1827355385591951496?s=46
To be fair, the EU is fairly expansive. There is a wealth of concepts/idea that could be creatively deployed in the films that a director could give their own unique spin on.
I feel the callbacks and retreads do kind of take away from the fresh concepts and new ideas though. It definitely did during my 1st viewing but when I watched it a 2nd time, it didn't bother me nearly as much and I was able to focus more on other elements of the film, and Fede does a lot breathing life/new perspectives into old ideas.
Some that stuck out to me personally:
- Xenomorphs dragging bodies. We've assumed they do this as cameras cut away before and we see people get pulled up still alive, but seeing the lifeless corpses just get dragged as they thud around the bowels of the ship was a fresh idea.
- Facehuggers get fleshed out significantly -- Method of detecting prey, implant mechanism as it face-f**ks Bjorn and gets dragged off Wu, the swarm, swimming, etc
- Xenomorph adaptive growth per the environment it cocoons itself in
- Acid blood as a significantly more tangible threat and how even a little bit of it on you can snuff your ass out and there is not a f**king thing you can do about it. Just a few drops on Bjorn's chest and his chest cavity explodes through as it eat seeps through his center ribcage.
- The pathogen development is quite significant per the exposition, essentially confirming David did not create the Xenomorph but rather modified elements of it.
- Malfunctioning androids and the 'reboot' sequence: EDIT: Actually the malfunctioning bit is not so new, hell, we get in in the first movie w/ Ash spinning around spewing android milk and of course David untethering over time in Covenant.
Lastly and this is a personal take but its also one I'm seeing more people come around to: I really don't think the Offspring is that similar to the hybrid of A:R beyond a very, very surface level. If Fede is to believed, he didn't even think of it when designing it. The manner of how it comes into existence is entirely different..its birth is more similar to the egg sac that comes out of the engineer at the end of Prometheus which subsequently produces the Deacon. The design is far more Engineer than human. Outside of it having a mixture of human and xeno DNA, the two are not that similar at all. That is not even speaking to the most important element of the final act of Romulus which is the actual implications of the existence of the Offspring. It's far more than just a simple 'Hybrid XENO HUMAN cause f**k it, that would be cool'.
Despite what we hope, AvPR does actually exist.
Fede brought up the coccoon, facehugger swarms, zero-G sequences, gave Weyland-Yutani an actual concrete objective.
We were also shown a fully functioning colony and some bits and pieces of how it works.
This was also the first time that we had young adults as the leads of an Alien movie.
possible. I don't think Covenant was really a flop. They expected a lot more but they made a profit, even if not that much.
It cost almost 100 million and grossed almost 240 million.
I think films that gross little at home but more abroad are still viewed as not as successful (?)
I'm really curious to see how long the euphoria surrounding Romulus lasts.
I hope he will continue to be successful to strengthen the franchise.
(personally I think it will be around 250 million)
Yep, but having finally seen the film yesterday, I felt the execution is still better than many blockbusters these days, sad as it is.
Tbf there were a few things that are somewhat original, main being Andy's spin on Android and there were a few neat touches. I should write something in the fan reviews now but lack the energy atm.
listen to the rex picket podcast. the amount of creative talent in hollywood simply ignored is beyond belief.
Saw The Crow trailer before Romulus, even the trailer felt like a chore to watch.
https://i.imgur.com/FVvyPlp.jpeg
Really glad to see Romulus doing so well. Say what you will about Disney, both franchises are now in a much better place than they were in the late 2010s.
https://collider.com/alien-romulus-domestic-box-office-50-million/
Yeah, that's what I meant. As far as I'm concerned, the respective box-office tallies and substance of Covenant and Romulus stand in direct juxtaposition.
Maybe you meant if something is uncommercial, it's cooler?
Both of those films exist on a plane that is outside the definition of "cool".
If something's unpopular, that just means it's cool.
Alien Romulus could have been much more independent, the reference to the Nostromo is well done, but creates a lot of illogicality. They could have solved it much better by simply having WY confiscate the covenant.
David had now experimented with it and he already had hugger with him. On the Romulus station it wouldn't have been Rook, but David, who would have been completely battered by now and complaining that WY had stolen his babies.
Because Covenant was so unpopular, they wanted to avoid making a direct reference to it as much as possible.
Currently at $118.7m on Wikipedia, not sure how accurate that is though?