Alien: Covenant Box Office Performance

[Ingwar]

Crossing my fingers that Fox is taking notice of this and if its still possible to course correct for the final film - try at best to close the Dr. Shaw's narrative via flashbacks and explore the engineers.

I hope they won't correct anything.  Otherwise it will make things even worse. They should have done it in Covenant. It's too late now. Just leave it as it is.

[D. Compton Ambrose]

This is a great article:

'Alien: Covenant' Is The 'X-Men: Apocalypse' Of The 'Alien' Series

[0321recon]

Crossing my fingers that Fox is taking notice of this and if its still possible to course correct for the final film - try at best to close the Dr. Shaw's narrative via flashbacks and explore the engineers.

I hope they won't correct anything.  Otherwise it will make things even worse. They should have done it in Covenant. It's too late now. Just leave it as it is.

Good point.

[Protozoid]

Crossing my fingers that Fox is taking notice of this and if its still possible to course correct for the final film - try at best to close the Dr. Shaw's narrative via flashbacks and explore the engineers.

I hope they won't correct anything.  Otherwise it will make things even worse. They should have done it in Covenant. It's too late now. Just leave it as it is.

Good point.

If Damon Lindelof is correct (and I hope he is) then Covenant was just a detour on the way to where Prometheus 2 was going. It would be kind if they kept the new characters and tried to have strong continuity with Covenant, but had them encounter a world that we expected from Prometheus 2. Perhaps I am reading too much into the movie's tagline: The path to paradise begins in hell. It makes it seem like the planet in Covenant was Hell (which looked like Paradise), and the next movie will showcase Paradise (which will look like Hell).

That would be acceptable to me. I didn't love Covenant, but if the next movie delivers on the premise of Prometheus without using the lead character, I can live with it, and it would be worth the (admittedly tough) compromise if the Alien fans are also satisfied.

[Alionic]

This is a great article:

'Alien: Covenant' Is The 'X-Men: Apocalypse' Of The 'Alien' Series

This article is bullshit because he doesn't think having Covenant competing with Guardians of the Galaxy, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Wonder Woman had an effect on its BO performance. He really thinks it's because it wasn't marketed as a Prometheus sequel.

[0321recon]

If Damon Lindelof is correct (and I hope he is) then Covenant was just a detour on the way to where Prometheus 2 was going. It would be kind if they kept the new characters and tried to have strong continuity with Covenant, but had them encounter a world that we expected from Prometheus 2. Perhaps I am reading too much into the movie's tagline: The path to paradise begins in hell. It makes it seem like the planet in Covenant was Hell (which looked like Paradise), and the next movie will showcase Paradise (which will look like Hell).

That would be acceptable to me. I didn't love Covenant, but if the next movie delivers on the premise of Prometheus without using the lead character, I can live with it, and it would be worth the (admittedly tough) compromise if the Alien fans are also satisfied.

I agree with you. I'm hoping Lindelof is right. I hope with this experience Fox and Scott Free dot their i's and cross their t's in a careful fashion to deliver the final film to appease both Alien and Prometheus fanbase.

[D. Compton Ambrose]

This is a great article:

'Alien: Covenant' Is The 'X-Men: Apocalypse' Of The 'Alien' Series

This article is bullshit because he doesn't think having Covenant competing with Guardians of the Galaxy, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Wonder Woman had an effect on its BO performance. He really thinks it's because it wasn't marketed as a Prometheus sequel.

Your opinion is noted.

[BishopShouldGo]

This is a great article:

'Alien: Covenant' Is The 'X-Men: Apocalypse' Of The 'Alien' Series

This article is bullshit because he doesn't think having Covenant competing with Guardians of the Galaxy, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Wonder Woman had an effect on its BO performance. He really thinks it's because it wasn't marketed as a Prometheus sequel.

It was a bit of everything. It's never one thing.

[bb-15]

Crossing my fingers that Fox is taking notice of this and if its still possible to course correct for the final film - try at best to close the Dr. Shaw's narrative via flashbacks and explore the engineers.

I hope they won't correct anything.  Otherwise it will make things even worse. They should have done it in Covenant. It's too late now. Just leave it as it is.

When thinking about the next Alien prequel, there are many things affecting box office as already mentioned.
One problem I'd add is the deep split among the Alien franchise fans. So, there is no correct story that will please every group of franchise enthusiasts.
* Examples from well known YouTube channels about "Covenant";
- Angry Joe hated the parts about "Prometheus" and loved the parts with the xenomorph.
- Jay Bauman of Red Letter Media loved the parts from "Prometheus" and hated the parts with the xenomorph.

Bottom line; "Covenant" underperformed. In terms of the ratio of box office divided by production budget, it's done a bit better than "Resurrection" and not as well as AVP.
To me it's premature to talk about the next Alien movie.
With the weak performance of "Covenant" it's not certain what Fox will do with the next Alien film.
My guess is that the studio will go for a very cheap production budget and Ridley may not be the director. Who knows?

- If "X-Men Apocalypse" is used as a comparison, the sequel for that, "Dark Phoenix", will have a director change. Bryan Singer is stepping aside and Simon Kinberg will direct.

[axiomatic]

Crossing my fingers that Fox is taking notice of this and if its still possible to course correct for the final film - try at best to close the Dr. Shaw's narrative via flashbacks and explore the engineers.

I hope they won't correct anything.  Otherwise it will make things even worse. They should have done it in Covenant. It's too late now. Just leave it as it is.

Studios take the heat when movies are bad but rarely the credit when they put in valuable input.
Let's not forget Scott almost got fired for trying to kill Ripley. The original would have been a total downer and half as successful if he did.

[Jimbobasaurus]

Heya, new here, but just got this in my inbox this morning, great Asian styled drawing accompanying the article too!

http://chinafilminsider.com/alien-flatlnes/

Regards

Jimbob

[tleilaxu]

f**king China. Everything has gone against Covenant so far. A negative popular narrative developed prior to the movie getting released in many places, convincing many people not to watch it, and then the lukewarm summer for movies in general while it had to compete with Wonder Woman and Guardians of the Galaxy. Cutting off the gore and creatures, some of the most important aspects of the film.. just why? What is wrong with the Chinese government? Just keep it R-rated for f**k's sake. My sympathies go to the Chinese viewers. I once bought a German version of Command and Conquer Generals, where all the people had been turned into androids in order not to offend Muslims, so I know what disappoint and anger in the face of shitty censoring feels like.

[Protozoid]

Heya, new here, but just got this in my inbox this morning, great Asian styled drawing accompanying the article too!

http://chinafilminsider.com/alien-flatlnes/

Regards

Jimbob

In short, Covenant made over half of its projected Chinese total in its opening weekend there. It will struggle to reach $55m.

[bb-15]

Alien: Covenant (异形·契约) enjoyed a first place debut with RMB 185 million* ($27.2 million)...

Alien will struggle to hit the 2x opening weekend multiplier that has become the recent standard for Hollywood releases in the territory.

http://chinafilminsider.com/alien-flatlnes/

The expectation now is about $50 million from China.
This is not bad news imo.
- "Life" which is part of the same sci-if/horror genre, made slightly less than $20 million in China. "Covenant" already beat that.
- "Covenant" is doing about 1/3 of the box office of "The Martian" in some markets like South Korea (which is near China).
(In S. Korea "The Martian" got ~ $32 million BO while "Covenant" got $9.5 million.)

With China "The Martian" got almost $95 million. 1/3 of that is about $32 million.
"Covenant" will get about $20 million more in the $50 million range.

With Japan's BO, "Covenant" could reach $250 million.
This is good news for those hoping for some kind of new Alien movie in the near future.

[PierreVW]

Alien: Covenant (异形·契约) enjoyed a first place debut with RMB 185 million* ($27.2 million)...

Alien will struggle to hit the 2x opening weekend multiplier that has become the recent standard for Hollywood releases in the territory.

http://chinafilminsider.com/alien-flatlnes/

The expectation now is about $50 million from China.
This is not bad news imo.
- "Life" which is part of the same sci-if/horror genre, made slightly less than $20 million in China. "Covenant" already beat that.
- "Covenant" is doing about 1/3 of the box office of "The Martian" in some markets like South Korea (which is near China).
("The Martian" got ~ $32 million BO while "Covenant" got $9.5 million there.)

With China "The Martian" got almost $95 million. 1/3 of that is about $32 million.
"Covenant" will get about $20 million more in the $50 million range.

With Japan's BO, "Covenant" could reach $250 million.
This is good news for those hoping for some kind of new Alien movie in the near future.

I agree.

Ridley Scott was very savvy. He made COVENANT with only 97 Million.

Tom Cruise did his MUMMY with 275 Million. Stupid.

THE MUMMY is a huge flop.

COVENANT could get a sequel.