The last film to lead the box office four weeks in a row was Barbie. The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Avatar: The Way of Water also did it last year. Deadpool & Wolverine had a chance to be the first in 2024 to achieve that this weekend. Instead, a new Alien film was released by the Fox division of Disney to take it down. Oh, the irony. The money is still coming from inside the same house, and they have every reason to be happy with these numbers for Romulus, provided word-of-mouth helps to keep them going.
King of the Crop: Alien: Romulus Dethrones Deadpool & Wolverine
Alien: Romulus indeed led the way this weekend. Last week we saw the 11th-best opening ever in the month of August. This week we have the 17th-best ever, just behind xXx ($44.5 million) and ahead of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor ($40.4 million). Romulus’ $41.5 million start, even with inflation consideration, was the third-best opening ever for the franchise behind Prometheus’ $51 million start in June 2012 and David Fincher’s Alien 3, which would have amounted to a $43.6 million opening today. James Cameron’s Aliens would be about a $28.8 million start; Ridley Scott’s 1979 original would clock in with a total around $342 million and Aliens about $244 million. Romulus is hoping to make a run at those totals with $108 million globally to start.
What Romulus would like to do is to zero in on those Prometheus numbers and pass them up. As strong as Scott’s prequel opened, word-of-mouth was not its friend. The film trailed off to conclude with $126.4 million, a mere 2.47 multiple over its opening. Scott’s 2017 follow-up, Alien: Covenant, opened decently to $36 million only to suffer a worse fate – a multiple of just 2.05 – and finished with just $74 million. That was still just a minor disappointment budget-wise for Fox. Alien: Resurrection in 1997 is the only film in the series to post noticeable losses. (Yes, even bigger than the Alien vs. Predator films.) AvP is actually the highest opening weekend ever in August ($38.2 million) to not finish with $100 million domestic. (Freddy vs. Jason is the second highest.) Romulus’ reported $80 million budget appears to be easy enough to overcome now, as long as it doesn’t flame out quickly or get the Twisters treatment overseas. It is only about a quarter of the way to catching Prometheus’ $400 million worldwide haul.
The Top 10 and Beyond: Deadpool Sets New Record, It Ends with Us Holds Strong
No that any tears should be shed for Deadpool & Wolverine. After all, it passed a billion dollars last weekend and a half billion domestically this week. Adding another $29 milllion into the mix, it stands at over $545 million in North America, the eighth highest ever after 24 days of release. That is still $11 million ahead of Inside Out 2’s overall pace of $534.1 million but behind its fourth weekend of $30.3 million, as well as Barbie’s $33.8 million fourth. That overall gap is likely to continue to shrink on its overall numbers as it appears headed for a landing between $630-650 million. That would keep it out of the top 10 all time at home. Globally, the film passed $1.143 billion and its now 31st all time.
While details on rumored drama behind the scenes is getting a slow roll in the press, the release of It Ends With Us continued to rake it in with $24 million this weekend. A 52% drop puts the film at $97.8 million domestic, just missing becoming the 10th August release ever to crack $100 million in just 10 days. That puts the film just behind G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, which had $98.5 million in its first 10 after a lesser $22.3 million second weekend. That has the Blake Lively-led film on a path north of $150 million. The film would need some smaller drops (less than 30%) in the next few weeks if it hopes to stretch to final grosses such as Crazy Rich Asians ($174 million) and The Help ($169 million). But even if it lands on the lower end of that spectrum, it’s still poised to become Sony’s biggest success story of 2024.
Twisters is quite the interesting tale to come out of the summer. The fourth-highest grossing film of the season domestically (and fifth of the year), which premiered on PVOD this weekend, is now up to $238 million after a $9.8 million fifth weekend (just a 35% fall), and nevertheless on the verge of being on the losing end theatrically. Just $95 million to date internationally has the $155 million-budgeted film at $333 million worldwide. As we said two weeks ago, there have only been four films since 2000 that have grossed $250 million domestically (which Twisters will hit) and not gross $200 million abroad: American Sniper ($197.5 million), 2009’s Star Trek ($127.9 million), How the Grinch Stole Christmas ($85.1 million), and The Blind Side ($53.2 million). J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek film is the best correlation, grossing $385 million on a $150 million budget (which was not a success when it left theaters). Twisters could still be headed north of $275 million domestic alone. There aren’t many movies that have to hang their head after a haul like that. Last year’s The Little Mermaid may be the only example with a budget nearly $100 million higher than Twisters.
The two big animated sequels of the summer are well into profit already. Despicable Me 4 cleared $6 million this weekend and now has a total of over $340 million domestic and $847 million worldwide. Just $9 million off the pace of The Secret Life of Pets and $7 million off of Despicable Me 2, DM4 fell behind the former on its seventh weekend ($5.8 million) but ahead of the latter ($3.9 million). Both finished between $368-369 million, while DM4 appears headed for at least $360 million. We’ll see if it can close that gap between now and Labor Day. Of course, the biggest film of the year, Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2, is now close to $642.1 million after $3.2 million this weekend. It remains about $3-4 million ahead of Jurassic World’s pace (JW had just a $1.2 million 10th weekend) and should still get over $650 million and cement its place as the biggest film of 2024.
Speaking of animated films, one of the fascinating stories of the week is the latest re-release of Henry Selick’s Coraline. Fathom Events did a 15th anniversary release starting on Thursday, and the film has since grossed $11.3 million, $8.3 million of it over the weekend. Last year’s August stint — a four-day Monday/Tuesday showing on the 14th, 15th, 28th and 29th — grossed $7.1 million. Back in 2010, the film opened in February to $16.8 million and grossed over $75 million. It remains the highest-grossing of all the Laika productions, which include Paranorman, The Boxtrolls, Kubo and the Two Strings, and Missing Link. The studio’s latest, Wildwood, will open on April 11, 2025.
Less successful is M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap. It took another 50% dip this weekend down to $3.4 million for a total of $35.2 million. It will pass last year’s Knock at the Cabin but not reach the pandemic release of Old ($48.2 million) and looks to be a small loser in theaters with just $62 million worldwide so far. A much bigger loser is Borderlands. The Lionsgate release of the Eli Roth film (with Tim Miller reshoots) fell 73% (the biggest drop for a film this year in over 3,000 theaters, replacing Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’s 65.3% fall) to $2.3 million for a total of $13.5 million domestic and just $20 million worldwide on a reported $115 million budget and is up there with Furiosa, The Fall Guy, Horizon, and Fly Me to the Moon as the biggest bombs of 2024.
Getting into the top 10 this week was Stree 2, a Bollywood horror-comedy that grossed $2.1 million. Dropping out of the top 10 this week was Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo. The Neon release dropped 71% (in 1,503 theaters) to $866,000 and now has a total of $5.3 million. Focus upped the screen count for Didi to 427 theaters, where it grossed $700,000 and now has a total of $2.6 million. IFC continues to try and get their films out to a wider audience. Not all of them are going to connect. Case in point: Skincare with Elizabeth Banks, which made $315,000 in 768 theaters for just a $411 per-theater average despite a an OK approval rating with critics.
On the Vine: Bill Skarsgård Resurrects The Crow
Lionsgate gets another shot this week with the reboot of The Crow starring Bill Skarsgard in the role made infamous by Brandon Lee and the on-set incident that took his life. Although, like Borderlands, the studio is not holding screenings for press, so enter at your own risk. Amazon/MGM is hoping to draw some interest to Zoe Kravitz’s directorial debut with the creepy Blink Twice, featuring Naomi Ackie and Channing Tatum. They were more confident about reviews and allowed postings this week; at the time of writing, it sits at 80% on the Tomatometer.
Full List of Box Office Results: August 16-18, 2024
81%
Alien: Romulus
(2024)
– $41.5 million ($41.5 million total)
-
78%
Deadpool & Wolverine
(2024)
– $29 million ($545.8 million total)
-
56%
It Ends With Us
(2024)
– $24 million ($97.8 million total)
-
75%
Twisters
(2024)
– $9.8 million ($238.4 million total)
91%
Coraline
(2009)
– $8.3 million ($8.3 million total)
-
56%
Despicable Me 4
(2024)
– $6 million ($340.4 million total)
-
55%
Trap
(2024)
– $3.4 million ($35.2 million total)
-
91%
Inside Out 2
(2024)
– $3.2 million ($642.1 million total)
-
10%
Borderlands
(2024)
– $2.3 million ($13.5 million total)
64%
Stree 2
(2024)
– $2.1 million ($2.1 million total)
Erik Childress can be heard each week evaluating box office on Business First AM with Angela Miles and his Movie Madness Podcast.
[box office figures via Box Office Mojo]
Thumbnail image by ©20th Century Studios
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