Alien: Covenant Box Office Performance

[Corporal Hicks]

"Game over, man, game over." ALIEN: COVENANT lost over 1,100+ theaters in its 3rd week, falling -62% w/ just $4M, $67M total.

https://twitter.com/ERCboxoffice/status/871375343650717697

[juxtapose]

. .thanks for rubbing some coarse salt into my wounds hicks. .lol

[fiveways]

i was just thinking about how badly that Life movie performed at thaeters as well. .it was basicly dead on arrival despite having ok reviews on RT.  audiences gave it a terrible c-. .judging from that i guess audiences are not that keen on horror sci fi anymore. .to be honest i was already weary of covenants performance at that stage. .it seemed to me like a bad omen. .at least covenant is not considered quite as big a flop in comparison. .

Did they even promote Life?  I've never even heard of it till this moment.

[juxtapose]

. .they did do a an expensive trailer at the superbowl and several other trailers on youtube. .some interviews as well. .

[fiveways]

. .they did do a an expensive trailer at the superbowl and several other trailers on youtube. .some interviews as well. .

I had no idea.  (That said, I'm not in the USA so the Superbowl is far less important in day to day life).  I saw nothing about it on any of the other horror forums I'm on. 

[monkeylove]

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.

I get this feeling that Prometheus earned because viewers were curious about the prequel, and after that they judged the film as 6-7 out of 10. The main complaint was that even with the wonderful visuals it still did poorly because it tried to be profound but could not due to problems with the dialogue and the story.

Producers did not solve those problems and instead added elements from the first two movies of the franchise because those were what made them successful. But viewers were expecting something like Prometheus, so they didn't bother to watch it. The result was poor box office results and the rating still 6-7 out of 10.

[Gash]

. .they did do a an expensive trailer at the superbowl and several other trailers on youtube. .some interviews as well. .

I had no idea.  (That said, I'm not in the USA so the Superbowl is far less important in day to day life).  I saw nothing about it on any of the other horror forums I'm on.

I saw Life at the cinema. A good film which owes a lot to ALIEN.

Sadly super hero movies seem to be the thing now - not sure why they've become so fashionable when they were the kiss of death for years. I've tried to watch a few when they've arrived on TV but find them unengaging. I expect their stranglehold will wane with time. R rated horror that has aspirations to engage with a mature audience isn't really finding one at the level it used to.

[Protozoid]

Attempts to blame Prometheus are futile and sad. It got better reviews because it was intriguing. Reviews stated so. They rated Covenant lower because it was formulaic. Reviews stated so. Prometheus saved the franchise, actually. Covenant is doing the opposite.

[Ingwar]

Foreign gross updated: $106,615,130 as of 6/4/17

Domestic:      $67,219,484        38.7%
+ Foreign:      $106,615,130      61.3%
= Worldwide: $173,834,614

[RandomNumber]

I think Daniels haircut negatively affected ticket sales.

Agreed.

Interestingly, Katherine Waterston says the hairstyle was her idea, and that she begged Ridley Scott to let her do her hair that way:

http://io9.gizmodo.com/katherine-waterston-stole-her-alien-covenant-hairstyle-1790422610

[Hemi]

Attempts to blame Prometheus are futile and sad. It gt better reviews because it was intriguing. Reviews stated so. They rated Covenant lower because it was formulaic. Reviews stated so. Prometheus saved the franchise, actually. Covenant is doing the opposite.

Nope guys, the opposite. Prometheus was wrong, so wrong. Alien is "right". Covenant had too much Prometheus blood, and that's why it's failing.

[BishopShouldGo]

I think Daniels haircut negatively affected ticket sales.

Actually, same here. She looked nasty and it kind of turned me off. I wish Daniels' hair was longer. And actually Katherine Waterston in this role in general was kind of bad. Her face is too weird. Enough of these unique Sigourneys and Noomis. Just give me a straight classical beauty.

[Spidey3121]

Wow.

Her hairstyle is the reason this movie underperformed? I've heard dumb takes before, but this has to take the cake.

As for Prometheus being to blame; promotion for Covenant didn't reference it at all. It's very possible, perhaps likely, that general audiences weren't even aware they were related.

[bananasalesperson]

People aren't tired of horror sci fi. They're tired of bad film making. Prometheus was drastically, wildly, flawed in script and storytelling. And alien covenant was merely 'less flawed', but also does some storytelling acrobatics to make it a continuation of prometheus.

Ridley Scott went full Lucas on us.

Interest in horror/scifi is just fine, perhaps even a bit hungry for something good.

[Gash]

Ridley Scott went full Lucas on us.

Really? That unfounded bullshit again?

Isn't that the Youtube level? Can't we expect more inspired critique here?