'Alien: Romulus' Dethrones 'Deadpool'

Deadpool & Wolverine stayed on top of the box-office charts for three weeks, but its run came to an end this week with the release of Alien: Romulus, the latest installment in the venerable space-horror franchise. Deadpool managed to barely hang on to second place in a close fight with last week's runner-up, It Ends With Us. Read on for details.

Via Variety.

“Alien: Romulus” ripped into the domestic box office with $41.5 million, marking the second-highest start in the long-running “Alien” franchise. Those ticket sales were enough for the newest chapter in Disney and 20th Century’s sci-fi horror saga to end the three-week reign of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which just overtook “Joker” as the highest-grossing R-rated movie in history with $1.14 billion.

These achievements are capping off Disney’s stellar summer streak, which ignited with “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” (May’s highest grossing movie with $397 million) and continued through “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 should continue to pad that total with “Moana 2” (Nov. 27) and “Mufasa: The Lion King” (Dec. 20) on the calendar through the year’s end. It’s an encouraging turnaround 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 audiences (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 cost $80 million and follows a group of young intergalactic colonists (Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux and Isabela Merced among them) who come face to face with 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 only new nationwide release since Kevin Costner’s “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2” (originally dated for Aug. 16) was taken off the calendar. “Chapter 1,” which cost $100 million, misfired in June with a dismal $32 million globally, prompting its backers to halt plans for the sequel’s release. 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, added a mighty $29 million in its fourth outing, a 46% dip from last weekend. It has grossed a mammoth $545.8 million in North America and $596.8 million internationally to date.

Ge the rest of the story at Variety.