‘Alien: Romulus’ scares up $41.5M weekend to dethrone ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’
The box office’s hot streak continued with the latest ‘Alien’ movie.
Hello! Welcome to The Box Office Report for the weekend of Aug. 16-18, 2024.
Programming note
Popculturology will be on break after this Friday’s edition of the newsletter. The Box Office Report will return on Monday, Sept. 2 with the weekly newsletter following on Friday, Sept. 6.
1. Alien: Romulus
Weekend gross: $41.5M
Total domestic gross: $41.5M
Last weekend: New release
Percent drop: NA
In space, no one can hear you scream. But the box office definitely heard Alien: Romulus this weekend. The latest film in the Alien franchise opened with $41.5 million, more than enough to end Deadpool & Wolverine’s three-weekend reign.
Alien: Romulus’ opening weekend haul fell between the domestic debuts of Ridley Scott’s previous two entries in the franchise, with Prometheus opening to $51.1 million in 2012 and Alien: Covenant opening to $36.2 million in 2017.
Romulus, of course, has been billed as a return to the franchise’s roots, eschewing the lofty themes of Prometheus and Covenant (along with Michael Fassbender’s engineering android) for the grimier bleakness of the original Alien. The Fede Álvarez-directed film easily outdid the opening weekends of Alien ($3.5 million), Aliens ($10.1 million) and Alien 3 ($23.1 million).
Despite knocking Deadpool & Wolverine down a peg, Romulus was another win for Disney, producing the Alien sequel through its 20th Century Fox banner. Disney almost biffed this one, though, originally planning to send it to Hulu.
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2. Deadpool & Wolverine
Weekend gross: $29M
Total domestic gross: $545.8M
Last weekend: 1st
Percent drop: 46
I’d imagine Deadpool would find humor in Deadpool & Wolverine being No. 2. (It’s not like he’s Bono and this is South Park.)
Even falling out of first place, the film still has plenty to celebrate. It now sits at No. 6 on the MCU’s all-time domestic box office chart, with only the original and latest two Avengers films, Black Panther and Spider-Man: No Way Home ahead of it.
Deadpool has also shifted up to No. 17 on the all-time domestic box office chart (ahead of the Lion King remake’s $545.8 million and behind The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s $574.9 million). The film’s $1.143 billion worldwide gross now has it at No. 29 on the all-time worldwide chart (ahead of Spider-Man: Far From Home’s $1.133 billion and behind Captain America: Civil War’s $1.152 billion).
