Alien: Covenant Box Office Performance

Started by John73, May 14, 2017, 05:51:54 PM

Author
Alien: Covenant Box Office Performance (Read 273,307 times)

Robopadna

Quote from: bb-15 on Jun 07, 2017, 03:21:49 AM
Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Jun 06, 2017, 08:47:33 PM

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/06/alien-covenant-box-office-flop-series-1201837669/

Quote"Alien: Covenant" will be one of the franchise's lowest-grossing entries, second only to 2007's "Aliens Vs. Predator – Requiem," which made $52 million domestic in adjusted numbers. Three weeks in, "Alien: Covenant" is at $67 million domestic against a $97 million budget; after Japan and China open, expect it to hit about $300 million worldwide, which means theatrical won't be enough for it to break even.

I disagree with the indiewire article summary.
- "Covenant" will not reach $300 million worldwide.
- If it did, it would do better than break even because that is more than 3 times its production budget.

Not sure what you are disagreeing with.  They think it WILL reach 300 WW.

They acknowledge that 300 is not enough (it isn't by a long shot).

Quote
- As for the other franchise movies, it's not about total box office but box office compared with the budget; besides the clear failure of AVP 2/R; "AVP" and "Ressurection" BO also didn't make 3 X their production budgets.

Deals with theaters were different back then regarding percentage splits.  Still AR was a box office failure.  Back then the cost of making the prints alone had to have been close to 4-5 million extra dollars.

Quote"Alien 3" barely did better than 3 X its production budget and Fox kept the franchise going with one mediocre performing film after another.
The only clear BO hit since "Alien 3" has been "Prometheus".

Fox keeps trying to value the property as a tentpole franchise instead of treating it like a niche film enjoyed considerably by a certain group. 

BishopShouldGo

It was well on its way to a tentpole franchise post-Aliens. Remember that the first two movies were in the top 10 grossing films of their years.

The problem is the budgets are big but the scripts are absolutely terrible! Heck, even when the budget is low(AvPR) the script is terrible! They keep treating it as tentpole because honestly, it has the potential. I can't blame them.

Prof. a

Quote from: bb-15 on Jun 07, 2017, 03:21:49 AM
Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Jun 06, 2017, 08:47:33 PM

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/06/alien-covenant-box-office-flop-series-1201837669/

Quote"Alien: Covenant" will be one of the franchise's lowest-grossing entries, second only to 2007's "Aliens Vs. Predator – Requiem," which made $52 million domestic in adjusted numbers. Three weeks in, "Alien: Covenant" is at $67 million domestic against a $97 million budget; after Japan and China open, expect it to hit about $300 million worldwide, which means theatrical won't be enough for it to break even.

I disagree with the indiewire article summary.
- "Covenant" will not reach $300 million worldwide.
- If it did, it would do better than break even because that is more than 3 times its production budget.
- As for the other franchise movies, it's not about total box office but box office compared with the budget; besides the clear failure of AVP 2/R; "AVP" and "Ressurection" BO also didn't make 3 X their production budgets.

"Alien 3" barely did better than 3 X its production budget and Fox kept the franchise going with one mediocre performing film after another.
The only clear BO hit since "Alien 3" has been "Prometheus".

;)

It's impossible to tell but a film doesn't need to triple its production budget to make a profit. So, on that metric, the article is not proven.

Let's look at some examples:

Elysium
Worldwide gross: 286 million (boxofficemojo.com)
Reported production budget: 115 million (boxofficemojo.com)
Profit: 18 million (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sony-hack-reveals-top-secret-754491)

According to the IndieWire article, Elysium would've needed 345 million in worldwide gross to make profit. But, it made profit with slightly more than double its production budget

Monuments Men
Worldwide gross: 155 million (boxofficemojo.com)
Reported production budget: 70 million (boxofficemojo.com)
Profit: 10 million (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sony-hack-reveals-top-secret-754491)

This film made about double its production budget and still made profit.

It really does differ from situation to situation. However, if a film needed triple its production budget, it would mean that barely any of the Alien films after the third one made any profit. Do you really think Fox would've made five more Alien films if that were the case?


900SL

900SL

#978
AC had a massive PR budget. It was wall to wall, TV shows, internet, mainstream media. Domestic TV ads alone were in the region of $25M. I think they knew they had a problem, and tried to hype their way out of a hole.

If you work on a cost of 150M including PR and overheads, you need more than 300M to break even, even working on 50% return across the board. . We've been through the revenue breakdown before..

Why do you keep trying to spin this one way?

fiveways

fiveways

#979
Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Jun 06, 2017, 08:47:33 PM

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/06/alien-covenant-box-office-flop-series-1201837669/

"Alien: Covenant" will be one of the franchise's lowest-grossing entries, second only to 2007's "Aliens Vs. Predator – Requiem," which made $52 million domestic in adjusted numbers. Three weeks in, "Alien: Covenant" is at $67 million domestic against a $97 million budget; after Japan and China open, expect it to hit about $300 million worldwide, which means theatrical won't be enough for it to break even.

There is no way in hell Covenant is gonna pull $125m from Japan and China.  I'd be absolutely shocked if it hit $100m.  I suspect $50-75m to be a realistic number bringing the total worldwide to 250m.

So if there is another one, expect a huge budget cut.  One so big I've begun to joke that they might not be able to afford Fassbender.  Think typical "R" rated sort of budgets.  50-55m.  With that kinda cut don't expect Ridley in the directors chair either (he will continue to produce i suspect).




Quote from: Prof. a on Jun 07, 2017, 08:16:43 PM
Quote from: bb-15 on Jun 07, 2017, 03:21:49 AM
Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Jun 06, 2017, 08:47:33 PM

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/06/alien-covenant-box-office-flop-series-1201837669/

Quote"Alien: Covenant" will be one of the franchise's lowest-grossing entries, second only to 2007's "Aliens Vs. Predator – Requiem," which made $52 million domestic in adjusted numbers. Three weeks in, "Alien: Covenant" is at $67 million domestic against a $97 million budget; after Japan and China open, expect it to hit about $300 million worldwide, which means theatrical won't be enough for it to break even.

I disagree with the indiewire article summary.
- "Covenant" will not reach $300 million worldwide.
- If it did, it would do better than break even because that is more than 3 times its production budget.
- As for the other franchise movies, it's not about total box office but box office compared with the budget; besides the clear failure of AVP 2/R; "AVP" and "Ressurection" BO also didn't make 3 X their production budgets.

"Alien 3" barely did better than 3 X its production budget and Fox kept the franchise going with one mediocre performing film after another.
The only clear BO hit since "Alien 3" has been "Prometheus".

;)

It's impossible to tell but a film doesn't need to triple its production budget to make a profit. So, on that metric, the article is not proven.

Let's look at some examples:

Elysium
Worldwide gross: 286 million (boxofficemojo.com)
Reported production budget: 115 million (boxofficemojo.com)
Profit: 18 million (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sony-hack-reveals-top-secret-754491)

According to the IndieWire article, Elysium would've needed 345 million in worldwide gross to make profit. But, it made profit with slightly more than double its production budget

Monuments Men
Worldwide gross: 155 million (boxofficemojo.com)
Reported production budget: 70 million (boxofficemojo.com)
Profit: 10 million (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sony-hack-reveals-top-secret-754491)

This film made about double its production budget and still made profit.

It really does differ from situation to situation. However, if a film needed triple its production budget, it would mean that barely any of the Alien films after the third one made any profit. Do you really think Fox would've made five more Alien films if that were the case?



Associated costs going up (think about the additional need for advertising alone, more TV channels, the internet and social media, high prices for big spot commercials, etc) since Alien 3.  Theatres recently have demanded more take of the box office since either of those movie were release because they discovered they have the leveraging power that without theatres there would be no place to show the films themselves (there was a lot of nasty in-fighting between studios and theatre chains in the 00's.  Attack of the Clones is a f**king great example as Lucas took 100% of the first week sales.  That will never happen again.)

Prometheus made money.  How much it made is up for debate but at the end of the day it made something.  This film got funded off that films success.  If there is a next film the budget will be based on this films failure to connect with an audience or they will head in a massively different direction (PG-13).

Protozoid

Profit or no, this movie is is still the second lowest grosser in the franchise, right above the most despised sequel perhaps on genre history (AvP:R), but cost twice as much to produce and market. I don't see Covenant being considered a flop, but there is no way this can be spun as an acceptable gross. For a franchise with 1-6 sequels planned, this was disastrous.  As an experiment in trying to be more commercial, it also failed. The Alien brand has declined with every film. Only Prometheus reversed that trend. All across the board, Prometheus did better, sometimes massively so. Profit or no, this movie still underperformed all the way up to the limit of how badly it could have failed before being considered a flop. Ridley's biggest flop will always be 1492: Conquest of Paradise. But Covenant might be Scott's biggest disappointment. They were clearly hoping for a sizeable profit and sequels in order to conclude their story. I doubt Fox will have any profit from this movie in their hands by the time Scott was hoping to film Covenant 2. The best we can hope for is a cheap Ridley Scott sequel to finish the trilogy, but even that might be too much to hope for. I think any future Alien movies will be pure genre product, focusing on lots of action and horror and spending less on talent.

The real question is, once these current heads of Fox are excused, will we get a proper Prometheus 2? I think they need to distance to themselves from the Alien brand and give us Visionary Ridley, not Hired Gun Ridley. Show us a visionary sequel and all is forgiven. If The Martian proved anything, it's that a sufficiently engaging human story does not require action scenes and gore. Audiences would have seen Paradise without the recasting and revamping and reintroduction of the beast. Your story has to be everything. Covenant dropped the ball on story in a gigantic way, and it introduced a new lead who really contributed nothing to the story besides being a Ripley stand in. The third and final movie should contain all of the story left to tell - no more withholding for sequels! Give us two hours of compelling story and keep the money you would have spent on action and movie stars. Sci-fi fans are sustained by visionary images and a story that takes us to uncharted territory with mindbending obstacles, but you have to care about your characters. Killing Shaw and sidelining the new female lead shows contempt for character. Action is something you include of you have an addition to it (Cameron, Bay, Blomkamp) off studio requires it. Let Ridley off that chain. He can command audience attention with pure vision. But they also have to stop frakking up any potential to develop strong human characters. Covenant was a disaster as a story and was almost a disaster commercially. The next movie needs to have an abundance of artistic integrity and no more Alien tropes.

Adapt and evolve or perish.

BishopShouldGo

BishopShouldGo

#981
Yeah, I love Alien, Aliens and Prometheus in equal measure, the but alien tropes were used to cynical effect in Covenant. They were treated lovingly, sparingly(thus more powerfully), and in a novel way in Prometheus.

I say bring back Lindelof, bring in another big star alongside Fassbender, and wrap it up. No more cute ambiguity.

Was it just me or was the story in Covenant... yikes, um, NON-EXISTENT. They land the ship, get off the ship, die, David delivers exposition we should have been treated to visually not through dialogue, they get back on the ship, die, THE END.

If Shaw was played by THERON like originally intended I don't think we'd be in as big a mess. She was still a big star pre-Covenant, while Rapace didn't gain in popularity, but Fassbender did. That's why they didn't care about chucking her, in addition to not being able to figure a story out for her. They would've fit her in as the lead someway had it been Theron.

PierreVW

Quote from: Protozoid on Jun 08, 2017, 07:14:56 PM
Profit or no, this movie is is still the second lowest grosser in the franchise, right above the most despised sequel perhaps on genre history (AvP:R), but cost twice as much to produce and market. I don't see Covenant being considered a flop, but there is no way this can be spun as an acceptable gross. For a franchise with 1-6 sequels planned, this was disastrous.  As an experiment in trying to be more commercial, it also failed. The Alien brand has declined with every film. Only Prometheus reversed that trend. All across the board, Prometheus did better, sometimes massively so. Profit or no, this movie still underperformed all the way up to the limit of how badly it could have failed before being considered a flop. Ridley's biggest flop will always be 1492: Conquest of Paradise. But Covenant might be Scott's biggest disappointment. They were clearly hoping for a sizeable profit and sequels in order to conclude their story. I doubt Fox will have any profit from this movie in their hands by the time Scott was hoping to film Covenant 2. The best we can hope for is a cheap Ridley Scott sequel to finish the trilogy, but even that might be too much to hope for. I think any future Alien movies will be pure genre product, focusing on lots of action and horror and spending less on talent.

The real question is, once these current heads of Fox are excused, will we get a proper Prometheus 2? I think they need to distance to themselves from the Alien brand and give us Visionary Ridley, not Hired Gun Ridley. Show us a visionary sequel and all is forgiven. If The Martian proved anything, it's that a sufficiently engaging human story does not require action scenes and gore. Audiences would have seen Paradise without the recasting and revamping and reintroduction of the beast. Your story has to be everything. Covenant dropped the ball on story in a gigantic way, and it introduced a new lead who really contributed nothing to the story besides being a Ripley stand in. The third and final movie should contain all of the story left to tell - no more withholding for sequels! Give us two hours of compelling story and keep the money you would have spent on action and movie stars. Sci-fi fans are sustained by visionary images and a story that takes us to uncharted territory with mindbending obstacles, but you have to care about your characters. Killing Shaw and sidelining the new female lead shows contempt for character. Action is something you include of you have an addition to it (Cameron, Bay, Blomkamp) off studio requires it. Let Ridley off that chain. He can command audience attention with pure vision. But they also have to stop frakking up any potential to develop strong human characters. Covenant was a disaster as a story and was almost a disaster commercially. The next movie needs to have an abundance of artistic integrity and no more Alien tropes.

Adapt and evolve or perish.

I agree 100%.

BUT that sounds like a DREAM.

The realistic future sounds VERY BAD:

1.- Sir Ridley Scott left the Directors chair by his own decision.

2.- A CHEAPER Director(His Son Luke Scott).

3.- Maybe Michael Fassbender DOESN'T return.

4.- SMALL Budget like 50-55 Millions.

PierreVW

Quote from: fiveways on Jun 08, 2017, 04:05:47 PM
Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Jun 06, 2017, 08:47:33 PM

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/06/alien-covenant-box-office-flop-series-1201837669/

"Alien: Covenant" will be one of the franchise's lowest-grossing entries, second only to 2007's "Aliens Vs. Predator – Requiem," which made $52 million domestic in adjusted numbers. Three weeks in, "Alien: Covenant" is at $67 million domestic against a $97 million budget; after Japan and China open, expect it to hit about $300 million worldwide, which means theatrical won't be enough for it to break even.

There is no way in hell Covenant is gonna pull $125m from Japan and China.  I'd be absolutely shocked if it hit $100m.  I suspect $50-75m to be a realistic number bringing the total worldwide to 250m.

So if there is another one, expect a huge budget cut.  One so big I've begun to joke that they might not be able to afford Fassbender.  Think typical "R" rated sort of budgets.  50-55m.  With that kinda cut don't expect Ridley in the directors chair either (he will continue to produce i suspect).




Quote from: Prof. a on Jun 07, 2017, 08:16:43 PM
Quote from: bb-15 on Jun 07, 2017, 03:21:49 AM
Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Jun 06, 2017, 08:47:33 PM

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/06/alien-covenant-box-office-flop-series-1201837669/

Quote"Alien: Covenant" will be one of the franchise's lowest-grossing entries, second only to 2007's "Aliens Vs. Predator – Requiem," which made $52 million domestic in adjusted numbers. Three weeks in, "Alien: Covenant" is at $67 million domestic against a $97 million budget; after Japan and China open, expect it to hit about $300 million worldwide, which means theatrical won't be enough for it to break even.

I disagree with the indiewire article summary.
- "Covenant" will not reach $300 million worldwide.
- If it did, it would do better than break even because that is more than 3 times its production budget.
- As for the other franchise movies, it's not about total box office but box office compared with the budget; besides the clear failure of AVP 2/R; "AVP" and "Ressurection" BO also didn't make 3 X their production budgets.

"Alien 3" barely did better than 3 X its production budget and Fox kept the franchise going with one mediocre performing film after another.
The only clear BO hit since "Alien 3" has been "Prometheus".

;)

It's impossible to tell but a film doesn't need to triple its production budget to make a profit. So, on that metric, the article is not proven.

Let's look at some examples:

Elysium
Worldwide gross: 286 million (boxofficemojo.com)
Reported production budget: 115 million (boxofficemojo.com)
Profit: 18 million (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sony-hack-reveals-top-secret-754491)

According to the IndieWire article, Elysium would've needed 345 million in worldwide gross to make profit. But, it made profit with slightly more than double its production budget

Monuments Men
Worldwide gross: 155 million (boxofficemojo.com)
Reported production budget: 70 million (boxofficemojo.com)
Profit: 10 million (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sony-hack-reveals-top-secret-754491)

This film made about double its production budget and still made profit.

It really does differ from situation to situation. However, if a film needed triple its production budget, it would mean that barely any of the Alien films after the third one made any profit. Do you really think Fox would've made five more Alien films if that were the case?



Associated costs going up (think about the additional need for advertising alone, more TV channels, the internet and social media, high prices for big spot commercials, etc) since Alien 3.  Theatres recently have demanded more take of the box office since either of those movie were release because they discovered they have the leveraging power that without theatres there would be no place to show the films themselves (there was a lot of nasty in-fighting between studios and theatre chains in the 00's.  Attack of the Clones is a f**king great example as Lucas took 100% of the first week sales.  That will never happen again.)

Prometheus made money.  How much it made is up for debate but at the end of the day it made something.  This film got funded off that films success.  If there is a next film the budget will be based on this films failure to connect with an audience or they will head in a massively different direction (PG-13).

It's speculation.

I never said it's information.

shawsbaby

Give it time. In a few years, someone will reboot the series and find a way to close this story and bridge to the first (or perhaps will just make a sequel film that ignores the prequel arc entirely). I can't see Fox giving Ridley cart blanche to finish what he started since this isn't doing big business and I anticipate a different filmmaker picking up the gauntlet down the road. Unless, of course, it really rakes it in from sales and rentals and they let Ridley go one more round-- but that seems unlikely right?

BonesawT101

He'll probably get his third film albeit with a much smaller budget.

Ingwar

According to boxofficemojo.com Covenant did very well in Asia as for R-rated movie.

Hong Kong: 3,360,017   
Indonesia: 1,865,891
Malaysia: 1,596,825   
Singapore: 1,008,013
South Korea: 9,571,227
Taiwan: 2,317,536
Thailand: 1,101,257

But looking at Europe's biggest markets with comparison to Prometheus it's total disaster:

France: 8,683,517 / Prometheus 15,842,943
Germany: 4,652,610 / Prometheus 14,049,633
Spain: 3,865,007 / Prometheus 13,144,422
UK: 15,881,032 / Prometheus 39,899,425   

Kane's other son

"This movie [Prometheus] has two children: One of these children grows up to be Alien, but the other child is going to grow up, and God knows what happens to them. And that's what the sequel to Prometheus would be."

If only they stuck to that plan...

Corporal Hicks

http://www.denofgeek.com/uk/movies/alien/49933/alien-covenant-where-its-box-office-leaves-the-series

QuoteIf Fox plump for the latter option, then they still have another option open to them: the long-mooted Alien 5, or at least a movie that continues the Alien narrative from Alien: Resurrection onwards rather than prior to the events of the 1979 original. Ridley Scott may be reluctant to let other directors play around with the series he brought about with Alien, but with the film industry being as reliant on financial success as it is, the veteran filmmaker could yet find himself pushed aside.

Even accepting the reality that Alien: Covenant hasn't soared at the box office, the franchise as a whole still has a valuable market surrounding it - books, videogames, comics and other merchandise. We'd be surprised if Fox didn't want to keep the film series going in some form, though the results of the past few weeks may leave the studio wondering whether the franchise needs a new direction, a fresh pair of eyes - and maybe a splash of new blood.

cucuchu

cucuchu

#989
Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Jun 09, 2017, 08:42:20 AM
http://www.denofgeek.com/uk/movies/alien/49933/alien-covenant-where-its-box-office-leaves-the-series

QuoteIf Fox plump for the latter option, then they still have another option open to them: the long-mooted Alien 5, or at least a movie that continues the Alien narrative from Alien: Resurrection onwards rather than prior to the events of the 1979 original. Ridley Scott may be reluctant to let other directors play around with the series he brought about with Alien, but with the film industry being as reliant on financial success as it is, the veteran filmmaker could yet find himself pushed aside.

Even accepting the reality that Alien: Covenant hasn't soared at the box office, the franchise as a whole still has a valuable market surrounding it - books, videogames, comics and other merchandise. We'd be surprised if Fox didn't want to keep the film series going in some form, though the results of the past few weeks may leave the studio wondering whether the franchise needs a new direction, a fresh pair of eyes - and maybe a splash of new blood.

Pretty much agree with their assessment. If you base the future of the franchise solely on the box office performance of Covenant, things seem quite grim. But the value of the IP is what gives me hope that Fox will still put some proper investment into the franchise and continue one way or another with more films. There are over 10 relatively new directors that I can name right off that I think could bring something exciting to the franchise.

For right now though the big questions are: Will Ridley Scott get to finish his prequel series with one more film and how soon? If the answer to that question is yes, then it seems likely that it would need to be happen sooner rather than later due to his age. If they stick to his plan of shooting next year then we should be hearing confirmation of the movie being given the go-ahead from the studio later this year.

AvPGalaxy: About | Contact | Cookie Policy | Manage Cookie Settings | Privacy Policy | Legal Info
Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube Patreon RSS Feed
Contact: General Queries | Submit News