Box office: ‘Alien: Romulus’ opens moderately with $41.5 million

As the summer begins to wind down, we got what might end up being the last big summer movie, although it also performed on the lower side of expectations. Read on for the weekend box office report.

20th Century released Fede Álvarez‘s “Alien: Romulus,” starring Cailee Spaeny, into 3,885 theaters on Friday, the first movie in the long-standing sci-fi horror franchise to be distributed by Disney. After receiving decent reviews with 81% on Rotten Tomatoes, the sci-fi horror film made $6.5 million in Thursday previews, just slightly less than the $7 million opening for “It Ends with Us” a week earlier. It then made $18 million on Friday, including those previews, which already pointed to the fact that the movie would probably open under $50 million.

Sure enough, it raked in an estimated $41.5 million, which is the second-best opening for the franchise after the $51 million weekend for 2012’s “Prometheus.” The “B+” that “Romulus” received on audience poller CinemaScore was better than the “B” received by previous installments, “Prometheus” and “Alien: Covenant.”

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That meant that after three weeks in first place, Marvel Studios’ “Deadpool and Wolverine” dropped to second place with $29 million, down 46% in its fourth weekend with a North American total of $545.8 million. As of now, that makes it the 17th highest grossing blockbuster of all time domestically, surpassing the 2019 live action remake of “The Lion King.” It’s now going to embark on the long haul to $600 million, trying to hit that mark before the release of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” just after Labor Day.

Blake Lively‘s drama “It Ends with Us” dropped to third place with an estimated $24 million, down 52% from its opening weekend to bring its North American total to $97.8 million, just a day away from joining the $100 million club.

Fourth place went to “Twisters” with $9.8 million, down 35%, as it brought its domestic total to $238.4 million, which means it’s mere days away from passing the domestic gross for the 1996 “Twister,” but that’s not accounting for ticket inflation. With another $4.7 million made overseas this weekend, it has accumulated $333.4 million worldwide.

Fathom Events teamed with LAIKA Studios to release a 15th anniversary version of the Henry Selick stop-motion animated film “Coraline” into 1,535 theaters on Thursday, including in remastered 3D. After making $3.1 million its opening day, it added another $8.4 million over the weekend, bringing the film’s lifetime total to $86.6 million. Presumably that will be enough to continue “Coraline’s” rerelease run in theaters through next weekend, since that’s on par with the $8.7 million opening for the 25th anniversary re-release of “Star Wars Episode 1” back in May.

The hit animated sequel “Despicable Me 4” took sixth place with $6 million this weekend, down just 25%, as it has grossed $340.4 million since opening in early July. It became only the third film this year to cross the $500 million mark internationally, with another $14.7 million overseas for a global total of $847.4 million.

M. Night Shyamalan‘s thriller “Trap” added another $3.4 million, down 48% from last weekend, to take seventh place with a total of $35.2 million in North America.

The Pixar Animation hit sequel “Inside Out 2” enjoyed its 10th weekend in the Top 10 with another $3.2 million to take eighth place, comfortably the highest-grossing movie of 2024 with $642.2 million domestically.

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Lionsgate’s video game-based bomb “Borderlands” dropped all the way to ninth place with $2.4 million, down a whopping 73% from its opening weekend for a domestic total of $13.5 million.

There were quite a few other wide releases, none of them doing very well, as Roadside Attractions released the Jean Reno-led family film “My Penguin Friend” into 1,080 theaters with generally positive reviews in play. It ended up bringing in just over a million for the weekend, averaging less than $1,000 per theater.

Elizabeth Banks starred in the thriller “Skincare,” which IFC Films released into 768 theaters, but after getting middling reviews, it bombed with just $315,894, averaging just $411 per venue.

Chiwetel Ejiofor wrote and directed the drama “Rob Peace,” which Republic Pictures released into 526 theaters on Friday, but it didn’t do much better than “Skincare,” bringing in $253,216, averaging $481 per location.

Focus Features has been taking the slow-roll approach with Sean Wang‘s “Dìdi,” expanding it into 427 theaters after a month-long limited release. This weekend, it added another $700k to bring its domestic total to $2.7 million with no signs how much wider it might expand.

Utopia released the Nick Jonas dramedy “The Good Half” into 53 select theaters following a Fathom Events run in July, and it brought in $38,000 for a running total of $146k.

It was a no-brainer for most players of the box office prediction game that “Alien: Romulus” would win the weekend with 2/3rds of players feeling it would not open above $50 million. 17 players picked “Coraline” to take fifth place, which will probably make the biggest difference in this week’s game.

Sixteen players got perfect scores in the August 9 game, and “RichRo” ended up with over 10,000 points, but there didn’t seem to be as many opportunities for big Super Bets with board leader “MellowDrama” taking second place.

Next weekend is Labor Day with even more lower-key odds and ends, so check back on Wednesday for the weekend preview to learn more.

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