Romulus’ Tops $314 Million Worldwide As 2nd-Biggest ‘Alien’ Film

Widely hailed as one of the best chapters in its 45-year sci-fi horror saga, Alien: Romulus topped $314 million worldwide this weekend as already the second-biggest film of the seven-film franchise.

Isabella Merced stars in “Alien: Romulus.”

Source: 20th Century Studios

After opening atop the box office last month, Alien: Romulus finished in second place the previous weekend — it’s third in release — behind only Marvel’s blockbuster summer hit Deadpool & Wolverine, which sits atop $1.2 billion and counting. This weekend, Romulus fell to fourth place, with newcomer legacy sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice taking the top spot with a whopping $145 million globally.

But those weekly drops from first place to second, then to third place and finally fourth, are still good enough to keep Alien: Romulus in the weekend top-five after four weekends in theaters, and the international business — bringing in another nearly $14 million Friday through Sunday — is still going especially strong.

Prometheus remains the highest grosser of the Alien franchise, with $403 million from its 2012 theatrical run. Romulus probably won’t reach that figure, but will be perfectly happy with its silver medal and somewhere around $340 million in global receipts. Off a sub-$100 million budget and modest marketing, the made-for-streaming movie can be proud of its strong box office run and widespread acclaim.

Besides the good-for-horror B+ grade from audiences via Cinemascore, Alien: Romulus’ terrific 80% critical score at Rotten Tomatoes helped boost the buzz around the film, and the more eyes got on it, the better it performs. You can read my own enthusiastic non-spoiler review here.

What this means is not merely a very successful, affordable, and widely popular soft reboot for the Alien franchise. It also means great potential for telling new stories in this series again, getting it back on track where it needed to be to continue.

ForbesReview: ‘Alien: Romulus’ Is Scary And Filled With Great SurprisesBy Mark Hughes

Alien: Romulus proved this series doesn’t need inflated budgets to look fantastic & attract audiences. At the $80-100 million level and moderate advertising, this is a very sustainable model with a franchise that fits easily into the $350-500 million performer range.

If the Predator franchise likewise continues its own successful and acclaimed revival-reboot in the aftermath of the fantastic Prey, including the same approach of moderate budgets and modest marketing, then the potential for even a much better attempt at an eventual Alien vs Predator type crossover.

There’s lots of overlap in fandoms, but also potential to win over stragglers and add more mainstream audiences to the tent, to maybe push the potential box office toward perhaps $600-700 million range if it’s done right.

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Alien: Romulus director Fede Álvarez says he has an idea for an Alien vs Predator movie, so we’ll see how long the studio can resist the temptation to jump right to the pairing. As a fan of both series who admittedly already prefers them separate, I personally think they should release at least one more solo film in each series before trying crossovers.

And with all of the work put into wrapping the entire previous franchise up with a nice, connective bow in order to reach back and hit the reset button with a smart, surprising continuation of the original two films’ story arcs, I think it makes far more sense to follow the threads started in Alien: Romulus and continue in what is clearly the best and right direction for the revitalized franchise.

The same is true for Prey, with Dan Trachtenberg’s upcoming Predator: Badlands follow-up and the potential for plenty more fascinating and wildly fun period settings approaches to the stories.

My guess is that 20th Century Studios and Disney will refrain from any attempt to hurry toward a crossover, and will instead cultivate the two properties after this much effort to get them back to basics again.

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That’s not a knock on Ridley Scott’s prequels Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, both of which are excellent sci-fi horror outings (although I’ve preferred to think of them as their own unique franchise apart from the rest of the Alien series, up until Alien: Romulus managed to tie everything together so simply and nicely). But the series-high box office belies somewhat mixed sentiments among audiences toward the prequels, especially Alien: Covenant, due to deviations from the events of Alien and Aliens, and for some muddled philosophy and “origins of mankind” themes that never live up to their potential (and never get fully answered, just more confused).

For my money, Scott’s prequels feel more related to the exceptional sci-fi series The Expanse, which was created specifically to mirror the world of Alien, and which addresses many of the same questions and themes of the Alien prequels — but in much more detail and with overall more satisfying results.

Alien: Romulus seems to be setting up three distinct tracks for the franchise: first, the continuation of Romulus’ character arcs, when the survivors arrive at their intended destination (or wherever they wind up, as the case may be); second, the inevitable convergence of the timeline as it catches up to the events of Aliens; and lastly, entirely different stories with new characters who wind up stumbling upon aspects of the Alien universe and potentially elements of the previous films.

Whichever route they take, I think they have great odds of succeeding, as long as they can remain true to the rejuvenated spirit of Alien and deliver the quality of Alien: Romulus, all at these more reasonable budgets. Three films at $240 million in combined budgets, generating $340 million per film, generates more than $1 billion in total box office. If Marvel or DC could generate that kind of revenue at that same budget level — $240 million for $1+ billion, they’d do it all day.

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