Summary
- Alien: Romulus is projected to have an opening weekend between $40 and $42 million.
- This marks the second-best debut of the franchise behind 2012’s Prometheus.
- Romulus has become the first movie to knock the Marvel hit Deadpool & Wolverine from its perch at No. 1.
Alien: Romulus is headed toward a historic opening weekend for the franchise. Directed by Fede Álvarez and starring Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson, the movie follows scavengers who discover an alien menace on what they believe to be an abandoned space station. The Alien: Romulus release comes 45 years after the series kicked off with Ridley Scott’s original 1979 classic, spawning a multimedia franchise that now includes seven movies, two crossovers with the Predator franchise, an upcoming FX television show, and much more.
Per Deadline, as of Saturday morning, Alien: Romulus is projected to earn a 3-day debut total between $40 and $42 million at the domestic box office. The movie is claiming the No. 1 spot on the chart, knocking the Marvel hit Deadpool & Wolverine to No. 2 after three weekends on top. This still a win for Disney, as the company owns both Marvel Studios and Alien‘s 20th Century Studios and thus has both the Top 2 movies this weekend. This also marks the second-best opening weekend of the entire Alien franchise, behind the $51 million debut of 2012’s Prometheus.
How Alien: Romulus Compares To The Franchise Overall
The New Alien Movie Could Become A Huge Hit
Having the second-best debut behind Prometheus could also mean that Romulus will have the second-best overall worldwide performance behind the 2012 prequel, which is to date the highest-performing movie in the franchise, earning $403.3 million worldwide. This could be a huge boon, because the new movie cost $50 million less to produce than the Ridley Scott title, meaning it could be even more profitable overall. Below, see a breakdown of how the movie’s budget and opening weekend compares to the performance of the previous Alien movies, not adjusted for inflation:
|
Title |
Budget |
Opening Weekend |
Worldwide Box Office |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Alien (1979) |
$11 million |
$3.5 million |
$184.7 million |
|
Alien (1986) |
$18.5 million |
$10 million |
$183.3 million |
|
Alien 3 (1992) |
~$60 million |
$19.4 million |
$159.8 million |
|
Alien Resurrection (1997) |
$70 million |
$16.5 million |
$161.4 million |
|
Alien vs. Predator (2004) |
~$70 million |
$38.3 million |
$177.4 million |
|
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007) |
$40 million |
$10 million |
$130.3 million |
|
Prometheus (2012) |
~$130 million |
$51 million |
$403.3 million |
|
Alien: Covenant (2017) |
~$100 million |
$36.2 million |
$240.9 million |
|
Alien: Romulus (2024) |
$80 million |
~$40 million |
TBD |
In general, a movie needs to earn somewhere between two and two-and-a-half times its budget in order to turn a profit, which could place the break-even point for Romulus somewhere around $200 million. While this is still a tall order when compared to the performance of previous movies in the Alien franchise, the fact that it is projected to open higher than Covenant, which earned $240.9 million by the end of its run, should show that it is on track to turn a tidy profit by the time it leaves theaters, with the potential to grow.
The fact that Alien: Romulus is performing well critically, earning a Certified Fresh Rotten Tomatoes score of 81% alongside an 86% audience score at the time of writing, could also help it build steam as its theatrical run continues. While it may never be able to catch up with the box office total of Prometheus, it can potentially close the gap between its current standing and the overall total of the 2012 record-breaking movie. As it stands, unless it craters catastrophically in its second weekend, it should become the highest-performing movie in the franchise that isn’t in the prequel timeline.
Source: Deadline
Alien: Romulus
3.5
Alien: Romulus is the seventh film in the Alien franchise. The movie is directed by Fede Álvarez and will focus on a new young group of characters who come face to face with the terrifying Xenomorphs. Alien: Romulus is a stand-alone film and takes place in a time not yet explored in the Alien franchise.
- Director
-
Fede Alvarez
- Release Date
-
August 16, 2024
- Studio(s)
-
Scott Free Productions
, 20th Century - Distributor(s)
-
20th Century
- Writers
-
Fede Alvarez
, Rodo Sayagues
, Dan O’Bannon
, Ronald Shusett
