Box Office Report: Alien Nation

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | August 19, 2024 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | August 19, 2024 |

Reviving familiar franchises hasn’t been a box office guarantee in 2024. Exorcist: Believer flopped hard and The Fall Guy fell short of expectations. So, Disney will be relieved that Alien: Romulus, the latest attempt to make the Alien saga happen, scared up strong business this past weekend. It topped the box office with $41.5 million from 3,885 theatres. That’s well ahead of the high-$20 million debut that the studio was predicting, and it also toppled Deadpool & Wolverine. Not bad given that it was initially supposed to be a Hulu exclusive.

Deadpool & Wolverine fell to number two, but it’s also now the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time, having surpassed Joker late last week. It’s still about $500 million away from toppling Inside Out 2 to become the biggest movie of 2024.

Laika’s stop-motion animated adaptation of Coraline turned 15 this year and it has garnered enough of a fanbase to earn an anniversary re-release. It’s always good to see stop-motion get its dues, and Coraline managed to earn $8,391,479 from 1,535 locations. Well done, Laika. Also, f*ck you, Neil Gaiman.

At number nine is Stree 2, a Hindi supernatural comedy that’s part of its own cinematic universe. It’s currently the fourth-highest-grossing Indian film of 2024 and second highest-grossing Hindi film of the year. In America, it earned $2.57 million from 666 theatres. I’ve no idea if the cinema number was deliberate. I hope so.

My Penguin Friend is about Jean Reno being friends with a bird of some kind. It landed at number 12 with $1,022,670.

In indie release news: horror film Skincare earned $315,894 from 768 theatres; Rob Peace, a biographical drama about a man fighting to get his father out of jail, grossed $253,216; the ‘Ultimate cut’ of Caligula, one of the most notorious films of the ’70s, brought in $30,815 from 13 places (seriously, look that movie up, it is a trip); and drama Mountains, about gentrification in Haiti, made $6,119 from one theatre.

This coming week sees the release of the remake of The Crow and the thriller Blink Twice.

You can check out the rest of the weekend box office here.