“ Alien: Romulus ,” the latest chapter in a sci-fi and horror saga that taught audiences that “in space, no one can hear you scream,” is making some noise at the box office. The film earned a solid $6.5 million in Thursday previews and is expected to earn $28 million to $38 million in its first weekend of release. However, some rivals and independent tracking services believe that Disney and 20th Century, the studios behind the film, are being conservative in their estimates. They expect “Alien: Romulus” to debut between $40 million or $50 million.
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The Thursday numbers certainly suggest that the final results will be on the higher end of projections. They compare favorably with other recent horror-tinged releases such as “A Quiet Place: Day One,” which earned $6.7 million in previews before ending its opening weekend with $52 million in the bank, or “Nope,” which netted $6.4 million before premiering to $44 million in its first weekend.
If “Alien: Romulus” draws big crowds, it will extend Disney’s recent hot streak. After a bruising 2023, a year that saw Disney and the brands it controls release commercial disappointments like “The Marvels” ($206.1 million) and “Wish” ($255 million), the studio has staged a remarkable comeback. This summer alone saw the debuts of “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” ($397 million), “Inside Out 2” ($1.59 billion) and “Deadpool & Wolverine” ($1.03 billion). That’s left Disney tops in terms of market share, having earned more than $3 billion in worldwide ticket sales. Looking ahead, Disney should pad that total with “Moana 2” (Nov. 27) and “Mufasa: The Lion King” (Dec. 20) still awaiting release.
“Alien: Romulus” is the seventh film in the “Alien” franchise, which is set in a distant future, one in which intergalactic travelers keep encountering a life form that is really tough to kill and really skilled at killing them. Fede Alvarez (“Don’t Breathe”) directed the film, joining a long and distinguished of moviemakers who have staged facehugger-based carnage over the decades, including Ridley Scott, the OG behind 1979’s inaugural film, “Alien”; James Cameron, who put a feminist spin on the series with 1986’s “Aliens”; and David Fincher, who has been trying to forget the experience of “Alien 3,” though he did give Sigourney Weaver a memorable buzz cut. Set between the events of Scott’s first film and Cameron’s “Aliens,” Alvarez follows a group of colonists (Cailee Spaeny, Archie Renaux and Isabela Merced among them) who are about to experience a high mortality rate on a rundown space station that is playing host to a xenomorph squatter.
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Critics praised Alvarez’s approach to the outer space bloodletting, handing the film a sterling 82% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Among those in the thumb s-up camp was Variety’s Owen Gleiberman, who described “Alien: Romulus” as a “confidently spooky, ingeniously shot, at times nerve-jangling piece of entertainment.”
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