The summer blockbuster season notably got off to a slow start in 2024, but fortunes turned around in early June, and things have been going well ever since. In the last few weeks, Shawn Levy's Deadpool & Wolverine has hogged most of the heat, arriving in the aftermath of hits like Kelsey Mann's Inside Out 2 and Lee Isaac Chung's Twisters, but it's now, the release of Fede Álvarez's Alien: Romulus has stolen the spotlight with an impressive debut.
We're only a few years away from the 50th anniversary of Ridley Scott's Alien from 1979, but the sci-fi horror franchise seems to be just as popular as ever, as the new release starring Cailee Spaeny just had one of the franchise's best opening weekends. Check out the full Top 10 below and join me after for analysis.
| TITLE | WEEKEND GROSS | DOMESTIC GROSS | LW | THTRS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Alien: Romulus* | $41,500,000 | $41,500,000 | N/A | 3,885 |
| 2. Deadpool & Wolverine | $29,000,000 | $545,816,895 | 1 | 3,960 |
| 3. It Ends With Us | $24,000,000 | $97,785,000 | 2 | 3,739 |
| 4. Twisters | $9,800,000 | $238,439,000 | 3 | 3,483 |
| 5. Coraline | $8,391,479 | $86,592,301 | N/A | 1,535 |
| 6. Despicable Me 4 | $6,000,000 | $340,402,000 | 5 | 2,788 |
| 7. Trap | $3,435,000 | $35,214,000 | 6 | 2,436 |
| 8. Inside Out 2 | $3,200,000 | $642,194,883 | 7 | 1,850 |
| 9. Borderlands | $2,350,000 | $13,542,237 | 4 | 3,125 |
| 10. Stree 2* | $2,184,000 | $2,184,000 | N/A | 666 |
Alien: Romulus Wins The Domestic Box Office With The Second Best Opening Weekend In The History Of The Alien Franchise
In 2012's Ridley Scott's Prometheus set a pretty high bar for the modern age of the Alien franchise. While the film itself is divisive among fans where quality is concerned, it was a massive box office hit. It had a bigger budget than any previous entry in the canon, but it started its big screen run with a solid $51.1 million domestic opening weekend, and finished its global theatrical release earning $402.4 million.
At present, it's unclear if Alien: Romulus is going to be able to ultimately put up those kinds of numbers, but it's certainly off to a good start.
Having what we can now call the second best debut in the history of the Alien franchise, the new R-rated release pushed Deadpool & Wolverine out of the top spot at the domestic box office by making $41.5 million in its first three days of theatrical release (via The Numbers). Without accounting for inflation, it has outperformed Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant, which made $36.2 million when it first arrived in theaters in May 2017.
In a specific 2024 context, it's the 13th biggest opening weekend of the year, having made less than Gil Kenan's Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire ($45 million) but more than John Krasinski's IF ($33.7 million).
The movie began to really raise its profile last week when critics got the chance to see the film and lauded it as a successful blend of Alien and James Cameron's Aliens (I gave it three-and-a-half stars in my Alien: Romulus CinemaBlend review, declaring it firmly the third best film in the franchise). CinemaScore surveys are returning positive results as well, with audiences returning a "B+" grade for the August genre release.
As good as Alien: Romulus did in the United States and Canada in the last three days, the real significant business that the film is doing is overseas. Last week, Deadline reported prognostications that Fede Álvarez's film was going to bring in $75 million worldwide in its first Friday-to-Sunday. Estimates were right on target domestically, as it was suggested that the film would sell enough tickets to earn $40 million, but the hunger for the feature overseas was evidently undervalued. While it was thought that the new 2024 movie was going to bring in $35 million from those markets, it actually brought in $66.7 million.
So instead of earning $75 million to date, Alien: Romulus' three day total stands at $108.2 million.
Given its positioning as the last big franchise blockbuster of the summer, the film is in a place where it could wind up making some significant money in the coming weeks. Its legs are likely going to heavily depend on word of mouth, so there will certainly be significant attention paid to its weekend-to-weekend drop percentage when reporting on the box office results next Sunday.
Deadpool & Wolverine Pads Its Numbers As The Biggest R-Rated Worldwide Release Of All Time
It was pretty obvious going back to last weekend that Deadpool & Wolverine's time at the top of the box office was coming to an end thanks to the arrival of Alien: Romulus, but its worth noting that the arrival of a new R-rated genre title from the same parent company didn't totally decimate the hunger for the latest film from Marvel Studios. The blockbuster continues to perform exceptionally well domestically, as it added $29 million to its haul.
Deadpool & Wolverine has now made $545.8 million in the United States and Canada and $596.8 million overseas, bringing its global total to $1.14 billion so far... and its only in its fourth week of release. The film is now far and away the most successful R-rated movie of all time, as it has earned more than Todd Phillips' Joker – which memorably made $1.06 billion in 2019.
It has moved up in the Top 10 of Marvel Cinematic Universe worldwide box office releases, as it has now outgrossed Jon Watts' Spider-Man: Far From Home. It only needs to make $10 million more to surpass the grosses of Joe and Anthony Russo's Captain America: Civil War. As I've noted before in this column, it wouldn't be unsurprising in the least if this success ultimately changes the franchise's perspective on the potential of more regularly producing R-rated features.
Laika's Coraline Lands In The Top 5 Amid Its Theatrical Re-Release
Lastly, I also want to quickly point to the presence of Henry Selick's Coraline in not just the box office Top 10 this week, but the Top 5. Fathom Events put the Laika stop-motion feature back in theaters this past Friday (in 1,535 locations, to be exact) to celebrate its fifteenth anniversary, and it turned out to be a big hit. While the film only made $16.8 million in its opening weekend back in 2009, the special re-release made exactly half of that – $8.4 million – in the last three days. There is clearly a whole lot of love for that delightful bit of spookiness... and we're not even technically in spooky season yet.
Looking ahead, we will see Alien: Romulus try and keep its place at the top of the box office this coming Friday when it competes with new releases including Zoë Kravitz's Blink Twice and Rupert Sanders' remake of The Crow starring Bill Skarsgård. Be sure to head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday to see how things play out in the Top 10, and to discover all of the titles set for release in the coming weeks and months, head over to our 2024 Movie Release Calendar.
