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SUNDAY UPDATE: Alien: Romulus has chomped into a $108.2M global opening, including $41.5M from domestic and $66.7M at the international box office. The Fede Alvarez-directed sci-fi horror came in well ahead of expectations, aided, as we noted yesterday (see below), by an over-performance in China. The start there was $25.7M, making it the 2nd best opening for a Hollywood movie in 2024.
In the fickle market — which is down in general versus last summer (local titles included) — the increase on Alien: Romulus was massive day-on-day this weekend. We’re hearing that’s down to strong word of mouth, reviews and social scores. Either way, it’s a surprise. The start bests that of A Quiet Place: Day One by 160%, already exceeding that film’s lifetime in the market.
The full overseas debut on 20th Century Studios/Disney’s Alien: Romulus is 47% ahead of A Quiet Place: Day One and 17% above Prometheus in like-for-like markets at current exchange rates.
Before we dig into a full update, here are some other notable numbers from the weekend: Marvel/Disney’s Deadpool & Wolverine is now at $1.143B worldwide ($1,142.6M precisely); Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2 has become the No. 1 international animated movie of all time – surpassing Frozen 2; and Illumination/Universal’s Despicable Me 4 crossed $500M overseas during the frame, one of only three titles to have achieved the milestone this year.
Meanwhile, Sony/Wayfarer Studios’ It Ends with Us has blossomed to $180M global after just 10 days.
Turning back to Alien: Romulus, No. 1 openings included China and Korea as well as Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. In Europe, the No. 1s were in Italy, Spain, UK and Poland, among others. In Latin America, A:R’s opening weekend exceeded that of A Quiet Place: Day One in Argentina, Peru, Central America, Ecuador and Uruguay. And it bested Prometheus and Alien: Covenant in Mexico and Brazil, among others.
Imax embraced $16.8M, or 15.5% of the global opening weekend total. This is the 2nd highest worldwide start ever for the format in the month of August. International was worth $9.5M including $5M from China which was a huge 23% of the total there. Commented Imax CEO Rich Gelfond, “‘Disney’s strategy to lean into Imax in its marketing paid off in a big way — with our network driving strong double-digit share of the box office around the world, including China. Fede Álvarez delivered one of the best entries in this series and Disney successfully leveraged Imax to help put a fresh spin on this beloved, long-running franchise.”
The Top 5 opening markets overall overseas are China ($25.7M), Korea ($5.4M), UK ($4.8M), France ($3.8M) and Mexico ($2.8M).
Just edging Deadpool & Wolverine ($32.9M) internationally this weekend, Blake Lively-starrer It Ends with Us added $33.1M in 52 markets, including a strong start in Germany. The overseas holdovers dropped just 18%, and the global total is now $180M ($82.2M from international). The global number is higher than the lifetimes of Girl on the Train and Where the Crawdads Sing.
Germany opened No. 1 with $4.5M for the fifth highest start of the year for a Hollywood title. France debuted to $2.1M, which is 64% ahead of Girl on the Train and more than triple Anyone But You and Where the Crawdads Sing.
Both Europe and Latin America are blooming on the movie. The top market so far is the UK ($14.6M).
Still to release are Italy, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Korea and Japan.
Meanwhile, Lively’s husband’s movie has now grossed $1,142.6M worldwide. The split on Deadpool & Wolverine is $545.8M domestic and $596.8M offshore. This fourth weekend for the Merc was worth $32.9M overseas. The holdover drop was 45%. Globally, D&W is the No. 9 MCU release ever, earlier this week it surpassed Joker to become the biggest R-rated movie of all time globally.
Here are the Top 5 markets overseas so far: UK ($61.8M), China ($57.9M), Mexico ($41.1M), Australia ($35.9M) and Germany ($29.9M).
Testament to all that is on offer and how the box office is firing in this late summer session, there’s also continued good news for family pics. Despicable Me 4 crossed $500M this weekend internationally, one of only three films to have reached the mark in 2024 (alongside Deadpool & Wolverine and Inside Out 2).
DM4 is also one of only four animated films to reach the $500M milestone since the start of the pandemic, three of which are Illumination titles. For DM4, the weekend drew another $14.7M from 82 overseas markets for an offshore total of $507M with global now at $847.4M.
Here’s the Top 5: China ($53.1M), UK ($49.3M), Mexico ($43.6M), Germany ($33.2M) and France ($29.1M). Still to release is Italy on August 21.
And in other important animated news, Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2 saw more emotion this frame as it added $12.6M from overseas to reach $983.8M at the international box office – thus becoming the No. 1 animated film ever overseas as it passed Frozen 2’s $976M. The global total is now $1.626B.
Top 5 to date are Mexico ($102M), Brazil ($79.8M), UK ($70.8M), France ($61.2M) and Korea ($60.6M).
In local news, Hindi supernatural horror comedy Stree 2 also had a terrific weekend with $33M global, of which about $28M is from India. Shraddha Kapoor and Rajkummar Rao star in the movie that increased day-over-day at home and landed in the Top 10 domestically.
MISC UPDATED CUMES/NOTABLE
Trap (WB): $5.5M intl weekend (67 markets); $27.1M intl cume/$62.3M global
Twisters (WB): $4.7M intl weekend (71 markets); $95M intl cume/$333.4M global
Buffalo Kids (WB): $1.4M intl weekend (Spain only)
The Garfield Movie (SNY): $1.1M intl weekend (31 markets); $163.5M intl cume/$255.4M global
The Fall Guy (UNI): $948K intl weekend ($927K in Japan); $86.7M intl cume/$179.6M global
MaXXXine (UNI): $129K intl weekend (41 markets); $5.5M intl cume
PREVIOUS, SATURDAY: 20th Century Studios/Disney’s Alien: Romulus is gobbling up tickets around the globe, now poised to come in with a $100M worldwide opening — significantly higher than pre-weekend projections. This is notably due to the strength of the Fede Alvarez-directed sci-fi horror at the international box office, and more specifically in China.
As Anthony has reported, domestic is looking at a $40M-$42M+ bow. With the Ridley Scott-produced franchise installment grossing $26M overseas through Friday, this portends a $60M launch internationally, tallying up to $100M global (give or take) — a terrific start and with clear weeks ahead. Good news for the industry, and for Disney in the wake of its mega-successes Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine.
In total internationally, Alien: Romulus is currently tracking 40% ahead of the opening of A Quiet Place: Day One (28% excluding China).
It remains to be seen how frontloaded Alien: Romulus is, but what’s happening this weekend offshore is that China is over-indexing versus predictions. Initially, hopes for the fickle market, and in a competitive frame, were high-single digits (possibly $10M). On Friday, the movie came in at No. 2 with $6M, then shot up to No. 1 today. The gross through today is nearly $15M as of midnight local time. This points to a $23M China weekend which will keep it at No. 1 in the market.
Social and critical scores are strong. Maoyan is giving it a 9.1 versus comps A Quiet Place: Day One (7.1), Alien: Covenant (6.9) and Prometheus (7.6). The Douban score is 7.7, higher than AQP: Day One’s 5.6, Alien: Covenant’s 7.4 and Prometheus’ 7.6.
Elsewhere, Alien: Romulus is leading the Korea box office with $2.8M through today, and France is leaning in with $2.5M.
We’ll have a full update tomorrow.