Deadpool & Wolverine and It Ends With Us are performing well as holdovers, while the reissue of “Coraline” is rocketing to the top of the list.
Alien: Romulus, directed by Fede Álvarez, is making a lot of money at the box office in its attempt to bring the beloved series back to life.
With an opening weekend estimated to be between $40 million and $42 million, the 20th Century and Disney film debuted at the top of the American chart on Friday with $18 million, including $6.5 million from previews. (Romulus also gets to gloat about being the movie that eventually knocked Deadpool and Wolverine off the top slot at Marvel Studios.)
The good news for filmmakers is that younger guys are finding Romulus to be as intriguing as older guys who grew up with the franchise. It’s also another triumph for the summer box office as a whole as well as the Disney film company. With a nearly franchise-best B+ CinemaScore, the film has an impressive 82 percent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes.
With a predicted global opening of more over $100 million, Romulus is likewise performing well abroad.
The events of James Cameron’s 1986 follow-up, Aliens, and Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien, are bridged in the eighth part of the venerable Alien series. (Scott is Romulus’ producer.) The R-rated film is about a group of adolescent colonists who discover an abandoned space station and see the terrifying extraterrestrial that has become the franchise’s enduring feature. Starring in the movie with her are Isabela Merced, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Cailee Spaeny, and Spike Fearn.
Romulus was initially scheduled to launch immediately on Hulu, a streaming service owned by Disney, but the studio switched to theaters at the beginning of main filming.
After dominating the box office for three weekends in a row, Deadpool & Wolverine is now at No. 2, but there’s no need to feel sorry for the irreverent Marvel and Disney picture, which has broken multiple records en route to becoming the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time at the worldwide box office, not accounting for inflation.
Deadpool & Wolverine, which was directed by Shawn Levy and starred Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, passed Joker on August 15 and ended the day with a global total of $1.086 billion, marking the film’s most recent milestone.
This weekend, the threequel is expected to bring in a another $27–$28 million, bringing its total domestic earnings to about $545 million.
The Sony and Wayfarer Studios film version of Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel It Ends With Us comes in at number three in its second appearance. This weekend, the Blake Lively film is anticipated to bring in between $24 and $26 million, for a domestic total of around $100 million through Sunday.
The female-driven movie made $73.7 million in its first seven days of release, which is the biggest opening weekend earnings for a non-sequel this year. Despite an ongoing social media controversy around a dispute between Lively and co-star/director Justin Baldoni—who has now recruited a seasoned PR crisis manager—the film is experiencing good return business.
No. 4 will see the release of Universal’s Twisters, which is now accessible on premium VOD. Next up comes the 15th anniversary edition of Focus Features’ beloved stop-motion picture Coraline. The re-release, which brought in $5.8 million on Thursday and Friday alone, is being managed by Fathom Events.
