“Alien: Romulus” ripped into the domestic box office with $41.5 million, marking the second-best opening in the long-running “Alien” franchise. This debut was sufficient for the newest chapter in Disney and 20th Century’s sci-fi horror saga to bring to a close the three-week dominance of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which just overtook “Joker” as the top-grossing R-rated film in history with $1.14 billion.
These achievements are capping off Disney’s impressive summer performance, which began with “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” (May’s highest-grossing movie with $397 million) and was followed by “Inside Out 2” (June’s highest-grossing movie with $1.597 billion) and “Deadpool & Wolverine” (July’s highest-grossing movie with $1.14 billion). The studio earlier this month became the first of 2024 to surpass $3 billion in worldwide ticket sales and is expected to increase that total with “Moana 2” (Nov. 27) and “Mufasa: The Lion King” (Dec. 20) scheduled for release through the year’s end. It’s an impressive rebound after Disney’s 2023 was comprised of commercial disappointments, such as “The Marvels,” “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” “The Haunted Mansion” remake, and the animated “Wish.”
“Alien: Romulus” collected $66.7 million at the international box office for a global start of $108.2 million. The R-rated movie has been well received by critics (it holds an 82% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and viewers (who awarded the film a “B+” grade on CinemaScore), which bodes well for its theatrical run.
“This is an excellent opening for a […] film this deep into its series,” says David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. “In 1979, the first film elevated the quality of creature filmmaking. 45 years later, the story still resonates. This is elite and impressive business.”
Fede Alvarez (“Don’t Breathe”) directed the seventh installment in the gruesome, otherworldly franchise, which kicked off in 1979 with Ridley Scott’s “Alien.” It had a production budget of $80 million and centers on a group of young intergalactic colonists (Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, and Isabela Merced among them) who encounter a terrifying life form while they’re scavenging a rundown space station. In terms of inaugural ticket sales, “Alien: Romulus” improved upon the start of 2017’s “Alien: Covenant” ($36 million) and 2004’s “Alien vs. Predator” ($38.3 million) but fell short of 2012’s “Prometheus” (a series-best $51 million).
“Alien: Romulus” was the weekend’s sole new nationwide release since Kevin Costner’s “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2” (originally dated for Aug. 16) was removed from the release schedule. “Chapter 1,” which cost $100 million, underperformed in June with a dismal $32 million globally, prompting its backers to cancel plans for the sequel. Otherwise, holdover titles rounded out domestic box office charts.
Though it was a close race, “Deadpool & Wolverine” pulled ahead of Sony’s romantic drama “It Ends With Us” to land in second place. Marvel’s superhero adventure, starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, earned an impressive $29 million in its fourth outing, a 46% dip from last weekend. It has earned a mammoth $545.8 million in North America and $596.8 million internationally to date.
“It Ends With Us” also scored another big weekend with $24 million from 3,739 theaters in its second weekend, a 52% drop from its impressive $50 million debut. The adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s literary sensation, starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni (who also directed), is nearing the $100 million mark domestically with $97.7 million to date. Globally, “It Ends With Us” has amassed an impressive $180 million after only 10 days of release. Sony Pictures and Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios co-financed the film for $25 million.
Universal’s disaster epic “Twisters” landed in fourth place with $9.8 million from 3,483 locations in its fifth week of release, a 35% decrease from the previous week. Notably, the film is also available for premium video-on-demand rental this weekend, which didn’t appear to cut into ticket sales. “Twisters,” starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, and Anthony Ramos as storm chasers in central Oklahoma, has earned $238.4 million in North America and $333.4 million worldwide.
A 15th-anniversary re-release of “Coraline,” Laika’s beloved stop-motion animation fantasy film, completed the top five with $8.9 million from 1,535 venues. It has grossed roughly $11.3 million since returning to theaters on Thursday.
Elsewhere, Lionsgate’s video game adaptation “Borderlands” continued to perform poorly at the box office. The dismally reviewed film, featuring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, and Ariana Greenblatt, dropped to ninth place with $2.35 million from 3,125 theaters in its second weekend of release. So far, “Borderlands” has collected a tragic $13 million in North America. It had a production budget of $115 million (a portion of which was covered by international sales, according to the studio) and is considered one of the year’s major box office failures.
