Alien: Covenant Box Office Performance

[0321recon]

I say finish up the trilogy with a strong connection to Prometheus, while leaving Alien mostly alone. Don't try to explain the Space Jockey as a recent event. Wrap up Prometheus and then mothball the franchise for 5+ years while mulling over the perfect comeback story. They are better off associating future movies with Prometheus, anyway, because it did twice as well financially and got slightly better scores.

Agreed.

[Alionic]

I don't think its possible for the Chinese market to make up for the money they lost domestically. This movie might stay in the red forever. It won't make enough money to shift its overall ranking in the franchise, either. I'm surprised nobody has called it a flop, given that it will end up with roughly half of Prometheus's gross and Fox will almost certainly lose millions. Some people consider Prometheus a bomb. What does that make Covenant? Clearly people are being nice about this result when its actually rather disastrous.

Almost everything you post is false. China and Japan's markets have yet to come in. Prometheus made Fox a boatload of money; this idea of yours that it cost Fox millions in losses is hilarious.

[bb-15]

I don't think its possible for the Chinese market to make up for the money they lost domestically. This movie might stay in the red forever. It won't make enough money to shift its overall ranking in the franchise, either. I'm surprised nobody has called it a flop, given that it will end up with roughly half of Prometheus's gross and Fox will almost certainly lose millions. Some people consider Prometheus a bomb. What does that make Covenant? Clearly people are being nice about this result when its actually rather disastrous.

True. In the press, it's being described as low performing but no one has cited it as a "flop" for whatever reason. Then again, "Alien 3" underperformed and they still greenlighted "Resurrection" a few years later, so perhaps there's enough residual franchise money and strength that Fox is okay with another round and hoping for better results?

What will decide if "Covenant" just underperforms (like the Alien/AVP movies since "Alien 3") or is a flop, will be the box office from China and Japan. 

Keep in mind that there are only 3 movies in the Alien/AVP franchise that are clear hits; which have made more than 3 times their production budget.
"Alien", "Aliens" and "Prometheus".

- However, so far no movie in the franchise has made less than double its production budget; a sign of being a flop.
"Ghost in the Shell" and "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword" recently flopped because they did not make double their production budgets.

We'll see about "Covenant".



PS.
I paid better attention to the sources for box office and budget and it turns out that;
- "Aiien 3" and "AVP-R" (due to its very low budget) also had box office over 3X their production budgets.
That explains the go ahead for "Resurrection".
With "Requiem", it was a cheap film that paid for its expenses but considering the viewer response (4.7/10 on IMDb) and its 12% Rotten Tomatoes score, it wasn't going to continue the franchise. 
- Anyway, here is a better listing of the numbers. (Getting the columns straight was tough.)

Alien / AVP box office ratios

         box office  / budget = ratio
               (in millions)

Alien         104      11        9.45
Aliens       131      18.5      7.08
Alien 3      159      50        3.18
Alien 4      161      75        2.15
AVP          172      60         2.87
AVP-R       128      40         3.2
Prometh.   403      130       3.2
Covenant   ?

[Protozoid]

I don't think its possible for the Chinese market to make up for the money they lost domestically. This movie might stay in the red forever. It won't make enough money to shift its overall ranking in the franchise, either. I'm surprised nobody has called it a flop, given that it will end up with roughly half of Prometheus's gross and Fox will almost certainly lose millions. Some people consider Prometheus a bomb. What does that make Covenant? Clearly people are being nice about this result when its actually rather disastrous.

Almost everything you post is false. China and Japan's markets have yet to come in. Prometheus made Fox a boatload of money; this idea of yours that it cost Fox millions in losses is hilarious.

Prometheus was a hit, perhaps even a big one, I agree. It's Covenant that might lose money. The conventional wisdom is that a movie needs to make at least double its budget to break even. In this case, that would be about $194m, and Covenant isn't even close to that number, and it's almost impossible for it to make that money during the rest of its theatrical run. When all is said and done, I expect Fox to post a small loss.

[gantarat]

i don't think movie do very well on china.

Alien scene get cut a lot and No 3d

[Protozoid]

i don't think movie do very well on china.

Alien scene get cut a lot and No 3d

Variety says: "Chinese regulators have long found graphic sex, extreme violence, politics, religion, superstition and horror to be taboo subjects. Chinese film makers are slowly grappling with the horror genre and trying to push the boundaries, but the results are mostly mild compared with some western movies."

So:
-No 3D
-Horror
-Extreme violence
-Sex/nudity
-Religion

Some of these things resulted to cuts in the film, and the marketplace in China right now is apparently pretty crowded with big imports. Also, I'm pretty sure Prometheus is the only Alien movie to ever get a theatrical release in China, meaning that being more "Alien" and less "Prometheus" might actually hurt it. They like sci-fi but not horror, and they liked Prometheus but haven't seen Alien. All of this is working against Covenant.

We will know in a week.

[juxtapose]

covenant is sitting at around 178 now globally. .it needs another 16 mil to hit double. .between china and japan i am sure it will get to at least 200, wich still won't mean that it actually made a profit. .cause it needs to make some extra to cover marketing. .but it wont go down as one of those full out flops of 2017. .like for instance Life, King Arthur, Ghost in the shell, The space between us, a Cure for wellness, Power Rangers, Baywatch, Chips. .theirs plenty more. .mone of those made double their budget. .some are even struggling to make back their budget once. .covenant is underperforming and a box office dissapointment. .but not a full out bomb like those i mentioned above. .

not to mention that nearly all those movies was a critical flops as well. .at least covenant got a decent critical responce. .the china cut's been butchered so i don't have high hopes and by the time it hits japan it will likely already be out on dvd, so no major numbers in either countries is what i am expecting. .but i really hope i am wrong and think it deserved a much better B0. .i am just so worried we might not get a sequel. .wich would leave my little fanboy hearth wripped and torn to shreads!

[bb-15]

i am just so worried we might not get a sequel.

That is very possible since "Covenant" (in terms of box office compared with the budget) is going to do about as well as "Resurrection" did.
And we know how A4 worked out in terms of sequels.

.wich would leave my little fanboy hearth wripped and torn to shreads!

I liked "Covenant" a lot.
But in a way my fanboy heart would welcome a rest from what Ridley is saying about David and the xenomorph.
Maybe it's a good thing that "Covenant" might be the last Alien movie made by Scott. (And overall I'm a Ridley Scott fan.)
- If Scott was done with Alien, I hope that would give the Fox studio a chance to fit the old canon with "Covenant" and reestablish the continuity of the franchise which is in the novelization.   

Maybe it's time for an AVP film?

[juxtapose]

@BB15. .yeah i know the likelyhood of a sequel is looking slimmer now after the poor BO, but i kinda enjoyed prom and covvie a hell of a lot and i did not mind david and were it was going either. .i wanted scott to finish what he started with at least one more prequel. .even if scott only acted as producer, but oh well. .now everything is in jeapordy and this might mean the end of the franchise.

Suppose another avp is the  next best thing. .hopefully that would be the worst case scenario.

Current Box Office Update
US - 71.2
Overseas - 110.4
= Global - 181.6

[newagescamartist]

If we get another AVP I hope it's a straight up reboot. While I enjoyed both AVPs for what they were, they seemed more like straight up Predator movies that happened to have xenomorphs in them. And they were cheesy of course. I'd love a very serious, well acted, frightening movie.

[juxtapose]

. .i felt the same. .and the pradator does not have the same screen presence as the xeno. .not in a million years. .love those guys but i always rooted for the xeno's. .it did not help that the charaters in both avp films where so underwhelming. .i wanted every human character to f**king die in the worst possible way. .lol. .and the father and son getting chest bursted while on a hunting trip. .that was one of my favorite moments. .especially the son. .so glad the bambi killing little c**t did not get spared. .

[Ingwar]

So:
-No 3D
-Horror
-Extreme violence
-Sex/nudity
-Religion

Unbelievable. What are they watching there? Cartoons?

[Denton Smalls]

So:
-No 3D
-Horror
-Extreme violence
-Sex/nudity
-Religion

Unbelievable. What are they watching there? Cartoons?

Every theater shows the movie Pleasantville 24/7 lol.

[Ingwar]

Foreign gross $110,379,620 as of  6/11/17

Worldwide $181,618,411   

[Protozoid]

It's definitely getting somewhere.