Alien: Romulusis rising up the ranks of the franchise at the box office. The new movie, which was directed by Fede Álvarez and stars Cailee Spaeny, Isabela Merced, and David Jonsson, is the ninth installment in the long-running sci-fi horror franchise, which began with Ridley Scott’s original 1979 classic. TheAlien: Romulusreleasekicked off with a strong debut of $42 million, which marked the second-best opening weekend for the franchise behind the 2012 prequelPrometheus, which debuted with $51 million.
PerVariety, as of Sunday morning,Alien: Romulusis projected to close out its third weekend in theaters with a worldwide gross of $283.5 million, including grosses from the 4-day Labor Day holiday weekend in the domestic marketplace. This far exceeds the $240.9 million global haul of 2017’sAlien: Covenant,makingRomulusthe second-highest grossing movie of the entire franchise. As with its opening weekend record, it is now only behindPrometheus, which earned an overall worldwide total of $403.3 million.
Could Alien: Romulus Become The No. 1 Alien Movie?
It Still Has A Long Way To Go To Outgross Prometheus
WhileRomulushas taken less than three weeks to outgross the otherAlienmovies, it will still be a tall order for it to outgrossPrometheus. The 2012 title was an outlier in the franchise, so the 2024 movie still has a lot of ground to cover. If it wants to close the gap and become the No. 1 movie of the franchise so far,it will have to earn an additional $119.8 million, which is just slightly less than the $130.3 million gross that the franchise’s lowest-grossing movie,Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, made in its entire worldwide run.
The movie has also consistently been in second place behind theAlienprequelthroughout its box office run. For instance,Romulus' domestic 3-day total in its third weekend is projected to be $9.3 million, which falls ever so slightly behindPrometheus' third weekend domestic total of $9.9 million. While the 2012 movie’s lead is not significant, it is still ahead, sothe 2024 movie would need to see a significant boost in September to pull aheadof the earlier release.
One place whereAlien: Romulusexcels overPrometheusis Rotten Tomatoes, as - while both movies have Certified Fresh scores - the former has 80% while the latter has 73%.
However, even ifAlien: Romulussettles slightly behindPrometheusas a strong No. 2 title in the franchise overall, it will still be a tremendous result for the new movie. The movie boasts a production budget of $80 million compared toPrometheus' budget of roughly $130 million, meaning that it will be a significantly better return on investment even if it is not as big a success in terms of the raw box office numbers. The movie is likely also already turning a solid profit, as its break-even point was probably somewhere around $200 million.
Alien: Romulus
Cast
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.
