Box Office Breakdown for Weekend of 8/18/24

BO Breakdown 8/18/24

Movies

What’s up, Geeks + Gamers? It’s ODIN!

Alien: Romulus Has Solid Opening, Yet Still Franchise Low

After three weekends at the top of the domestic box office, Deadpool & Wolverine has finally been knocked off its perch by the latest film in the Alien franchise, Alien: Romulus. Though Deadpool & Wolverine is in a completely different category when it comes to total box office and potential box office, to see Alien: Romulus start off in such a strong way above initial projections is interesting. With a budget of around $80 million, the break-even for Romulus is roughly between $200-$260 million. In its global debut, the film made roughly $108 million, which not only gives it a great start but also means the chances it will be able to cross $300 million globally by the end of its run are quite good. Remembering that most films make about 30% of their entire box office in the global opening on average, that means we will likely see Romulus end up at around $250 million (if the wheels fall off) or up to about $400 million if it is able to double what will likely be a week-two global total of over $200 million by the end of next weekend.

Despite the fact that Alien: Romulus is performing better than initial projections, it must be pointed out that this movie is well beyond the domestic openings of the two most recent Alien spin-off films, Prometheus from 2012 and Alien: Covenant from 2017. In the case of Alien: Covenant, the $41,500,000 opening of Romulus is below the adjusted-for-inflation opening of Covenant, which was roughly $45,200,776. Regarding the estimated ticket sales, the 4,031,284 of Covenant show a clear advantage over the 3,192,308 of Romulus. The picture is least pretty, however, when you look at the numbers for Prometheus, which ended up with an adjusted opening of $68,407,135 and roughly 6,413,329 tickets sold. In the cases of those other films, however, the budgets were much larger, with Prometheus costing about $167,500,000 when adjusted and Covenant costing about $121,250,000. With these budgets taken into account and remembering that the opening weekend for Romulus did better than initial projections, one can see why things are looking quite good for the long-term prospects of Alien: Romulus. 

According to the-numbers.com, the top 5 this weekend domestically were:

1. Alien: Romulus ($41.5 million as a new release)
2. Deadpool & Wolverine (46% drop in 4th weekend)
3. It Ends With Us (52% drop in 2nd weekend)
4. Twisters (35% drop in 5th weekend)
5. Coraline (Re-Release) ($8.3 million)

Deadpool & Wolverine Still Tracking Towards $1.3-$1.5 Billion

Though it was booted from the #1 spot domestically, Deadpool & Wolverine continued to add to its massive global numbers, reaching about $1,142,616,895 as of the writing of this article. Not only does the film continue to have strong holds every week – especially at the domestic box office – but it is also clearly well on its way to making at least $600 million domestically and has a solid chance to make about $1.3 billion globally. The film currently still has an edge domestically against where Inside Out 2 was at the same point of its release… though, to be honest, this lead will likely not last another week or two, as Inside Out 2 is very likely going to be the biggest box office film of 2024. But Deadpool & Wolverine will definitely not be a pushover in that battle. 

Borderlands PLUMMETS and is a Guaranteed Flop

No one was expecting much from Borderlands after an abysmal opening weekend, but with these week-two numbers, things have gotten much worse for this very poorly received film adaptation of a popular video game series. With a drop of about 73% domestically, we can now project that the film will only make between $30,346,053 and $42,484,474 globally by the end of its run. This means it will likely lose +$140 million at the box office and, therefore, is well positioned to end in the ten biggest box office flops of 2024 list. The only good news for distributor Lionsgate is that the production companies are more likely to take the brunt of the fiscal losses for the film. Whatever their fate may be, no one is going to deny that Borderlands was truly a catastrophic failure.  

Check out my channel for the latest box office HERE.

If you want further analysis on these or any other films, check out the full charting I do over at my website. Have a wonderful rest of your day, and, as always, God bless! 

(If you ever want further insight into my methodology, see my previous articles HERE and HERE, and the RCC method I use to break down movies internationally HERE.)