Moviegoers embraced Alien: Romulus with the passion of a face-hugger this weekend.
The latest Alien flick raced to a $41.5 million debut in North America, according to Box Office Mojo—about twice as much as prognosticators expected. It also marks the franchise’s second-biggest opening ever (not adjusted for inflation), trailing only 2012’s Prometheus ($51.1 million).
And overseas? Romulus killed the competition there as well. It snapped up another $66.7 million internationally, pushing its worldwide debut to a very healthy $108.2 million.
That left Deadpool & Wolverine in an unfamiliar spot: second place. For the last three weekends, the superhero flick looked down from its lofty box-office mountaintop, chortling at any who dared to challenge its supremacy. But the film had no answer for these ravenous xenomorphs.
Still, Deadpool & Wolverine added another $29 million to its bottom line, pushing its total domestic tally to $545.8 million. That cements its spot as the year’s second-biggest movie—though it still trails Inside Out 2 ($642.2 million) by nearly $100 million.
Last week’s runner-up, It Ends with Us, hasn’t ended its box-office run either. It finished third this weekend with $24 million, giving it a two-week tally of $97.8 million.
Meanwhile, Twisters took the fourth spot with $9.8 million. By box-office standards, the five-week-old Twisters feels a little long-in-the-tooth. But it’s nowhere near the oldest movie in our top five. That title would go to Coraline, which celebrated its 15th anniversary with a Fathom Events re-release. The dark animated flick earned $8.4 million, finishing in fifth place.
Looking down the list a bit, we find the sweet PG film My Penguin Friend in 12th place. It earned just north of $1 million this weekend, meaning it—like its titular bird—didn’t quite fly. But here’s to hoping that the film will float around and find an audience.
4 Responses
Let me know when Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and God’s Not Dead 5 comes out.
Was curious, did those God’s Not Dead movies improve after the first, particularly in terms of the fairness of their message? The first had an extremely unflattering/problematic portrayal of basically any belief system other than a very specific subset of Christianity, but especially of atheism (teacher slamming a student against a wall and later screaming about how he hates God is not a fair representation of a simple, non-hostile assertion that God has no evidence for existence), Islam (I’m not saying it’s a peaceful religion, but “violently abusive parent” is a stereotype), and even progressive politics.
I looked up the synopsis for the next God’s Not Dead film, which talks about removing God from public policy, and I genuinely don’t see a reason why I should consider that a negative in a secular, pluralistic society where no one religious dogma (evangelicalism, Catholicism, Islam) gets to wield its public influence toward political power.
Plugged In, I was looking at your review for the movie “The Forge,” and the review had some messages I had some concerns with.
“Teach him not just how to be a good, solid worker for Moore Fitness, but how to be a man.
It’s not easy. Becoming a man—a real, responsible man—takes way more than reaching your 19th birthday. Or your 21st. Or your 37th. It takes effort. Character. Dedication.
Christ.”
I know there are many men, good, responsible men of character, who simply do not share our Christian religious beliefs, and that does not make any one of them cease to be “a real, responsible man.” You can say that Christ is working in the hearts of those people, but many of them are still able and willing to do good things even if they haven’t undergone the process of Christian repentance.
Likewise, you mention, “According to the Pew Research Center, 210 million people in the United States identify as Christian. Can you imagine what would happen if every one of those 210 million people were as committed to Christ as Joshua? If they gave so much of their time and treasure?”
Yes I can, we would have no poverty or hunger, no racism or sexism, no hate crimes, no endless war, no church abuse or ungodly teachings, and no systemic social inequality.
Oh, and Deadpool 3 very quietly broke Joker’s “R-rated international” box-office record. China most definitely helped but, surprisingly, wasn’t the sole deciding factor, though the gap isn’t that much bigger than China’s portion of Deadpool’s box office. Owing to Joker’s horrific subject matter, I doubt Joker 2 will be allowed a release there either.
Granted, as someone else pointed out, Deadpool 3’s budget was much larger and would be considered a risk even if it were rated PG-13 (each of those films roughly doubled the budget of the one before it), while Joker 2’s budget has also ballooned to the point where even family-friendly movies would have to stop and take an account (poor Furiosa). Snyder Cut Justice League’s additions apparently cost more than all of Joker 1 did.