Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant Tops Box Office with a Disappointing $36 Million
The weekend before Memorial Day can often be a great weekend for a huge summer blockbuster, as that’s where three of the eight Star Wars movies were released, but it didn’t work quite as well for Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant from 20th Century Fox, which was moved to this date earlier in the year.
Starring Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Danny McBride, Billy Crudup, Demian Bechir and more, Alien: Covenant opened on Friday with $15.3 million in 3,716 theaters, including $4.2 million from Thursday previews. For the weekend, it’s grossed an estimated $36 million, which is $15 million less than the $51 opening for Scott’s previous Alien movie Prometheus five years ago. That’s also less than the $38 million opening for Paul W.S. Anderson’s Alien vs. Predator in 2004, with $2 million of that amount coming from 103 domestic IMAX screens. With a moderate B CinemaScore, it seems like audiences were as mixed on the movie as ComingSoon.net’s own critics.
Last weekend, Alien: Covenant took in $42 million overseas in 34 markets, though many of the territories were down from 2012’s Prometheus. It expanded to 52 new international territories to add another $30.3 million overseas from 12,850 screens. It was #1 in Russia with $4.4 million, Germany with $2.3 million, while remaining #1 in some of the previous territories. It has grossed $81.8 million internationally with two of the biggest markets, China and Japan, still to come.
Meanwhile, Walt Disney Pictures and Marvel Studios‘ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, directed by James Gunn, dropped to second place as it passed the $300 million milestone domestically. Its $35.1 million third weekend is close enough to Alien: Covenant that we could see a photo finish when weekend actuals come in. With $301.8 million domestically, it’s just $32 million away from the domestic gross of 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy, and it could surpass it by month’s end.
Guardians Vol. 2 added another $28 million to bring its overseas total to $431 million and a global total of $732.6 million. It needs $50 million more to achieve the global box office of the previous movie.
