Weekend thread August 16th-18th Alien Romulus $6.5m previews

[Krissykins]

4 hours ago, kayumanggi said:

 

Incredible for Longlegs. Never would’ve predicted that at the start of the year. So deserved too.

 

 

Excellent start for Alien Romulus. Just seen it and it’s very accessible too. Those practical sets and production design are gorgeous.

 

To think it was originally for Hulu. Prey was great as well. A return to form for these franchises by going back to basics. 

[RyneOh1040]

man that is fucking EXCELLENT for coraline. as impressive to me as any other number this weekend. 

 

almost 60% of what it made opening weekend over the 4day! 

 

deserved for a truly timeless film.

[Kon]

1 hour ago, kayumanggi said:

FRIDAY MIDDAY UPDATE: 20th Century Studios/Disney’s Fede Alvarez directed Alien: Romulus is headed for a $40M+ opening at 3,885 theaters in first place after a previews/Friday of $18.5M+. Screen Engine/Comscore PostTrak audience exits last night were happy with the movie at 82% positive, 4 stars and a 65% definite recommend. The biggest opening for an Alien movie remains the 2012 Ridley Scott directed prequel Prometheus at $51M.

 

Fans showed up at 71% men, with 54% over 25. The 18-34 crowd repped 54% of the audience. Despite the younger cast here in Isabel Merced, Cailey Spaeny and David Jonsson among others, 74% of the crowd were over 25.

 

Box Office: 'Alien: Romulus' Earns $6.5M Previews (deadline.com)

This amount of audience over 25 age clearly shows the franchise appeal is for the old audience.

 

I doubt this movie will have so much success on attracting new audience or legs.

[kayumanggi]

 

[Jim Shorts]

6 hours ago, Ryan C said:

 

"Dead old white person franchise?" I'm sorry but that's a hilarious way to describe something. 

 

Though even before this opening, I would not really put Alien as a franchise on the same level of Mad Max. It may be geared towards more older people and not really younger or more diverse audiences, but it still has a big fanbase that if the movie is good (like Romulus supposedly is) does expand beyond that. 

 

You're on crack if you think Mad Max is a bigger franchise than Alien.  Hilarious. 

[grey ghost]

30 minutes ago, ZattMurdock said:

Fuck yes.

 

 

Disney would be fools to pass this up.

 

Hopefully they understand the potential of R rated geek movies now.

[grey ghost]

Not to dog pile Cmasterclay but everyone loves Alien/Predator/Terminator. 

 

Everyone. 

[grey ghost]

Furious bombed because.

 

1) It lost the biggest stars from Fury Road

 

2) The hype from Fury Road was long gone.

 

3) It was a prequel no one asked for.

[TMP]

I get that this forum is largely a place to discuss the financial metrics of a movie’s performance, but i have no idea why you’d want Furiosa to be a worse movie just so it’d be more commercially viable. Like surely we should be happy a movie as bold and artistically rich as that even exists at all, especially in a summer movie season as dry as this one was. Just feels weird to have so much cynicism over something that’s so clearly an artistic passion project which paid off (quality wise at least) just because audiences didn’t turn up

[ZattMurdock]

23 minutes ago, Jim Shorts said:

 

You're on crack if you think Mad Max is a bigger franchise than Alien.  Hilarious. 

I don’t blame anyone buying into the narrative that Mad Max is a big franchise, I mean film twitter has a thing about over exaggerating the popularity of their favorite franchises. 

[Unfitclock]

Coraline dropping 1 million from Thursday while increasing theaters seems off

[keysersoze123]

Coraline dropping is expected. It had "fan rush" yesterday. It was also very presales driven yesterday. Not much of walkups. 

 

I think Romulus will go up from early numbers. 

[Ryan C]

6 minutes ago, TMP said:

I get that this forum is largely a place to discuss the financial metrics of a movie’s performance, but i have no idea why you’d want Furiosa to be a worse movie just so it’d be more commercially viable. Like surely we should be happy a movie as bold and artistically rich as that even exists at all, especially in a summer movie season as dry as this one was. Just feels weird to have so much cynicism over something that’s so clearly an artistic passion project which paid off (quality wise at least) just because audiences didn’t turn up

 

As someone who saw Furiosa 4 times in the theater, I completely agree with this. 

 

Furiosa was a movie that shouldn't exist in 2024, but it does and I love it so much for just how unconventional yet f***ing epic it is to watch. It's one of those movies that you just have to see on the biggest screen possible to appreciate the scale and the craft of everything on display. 

 

Personally, I think a lot of people are showing a lot of cynicism towards it because its massive failure at the box office contributed to this whole narrative that "cinema is dead" and now that we've been on something of a hot streak, people are only using it as a comparison to all the franchise films and movies this summer that thrived on being either four-quadrant or walk-up heavy. Basically saying that all these movies had something that Furiosa didn't and putting it off as the worst kind of example you could have for a franchise flick that appealed to a very niche audience/fanbase and got no attention from anyone else. 

 

Though I honestly don't think a lot of people are saying that Furiosa didn't pay off in terms of quality or that it should've been so much worse to be commercially viable. I think everyone knew that it was always a massive risk to make this movie. 

[Jaxon5]

They should make a sequel to Dredd

[Darth Lehnsherr]

Thankfully Furiosa was an anomaly this summer in terms of how the R rated tentpole films performed so its BO failure matters less in the grand scheme of things. 

[Jaxon5]

Furiosa was good but I didn't like the look of it for the most part when compared to Fury Road. Everything looked a bit too digital

[Eric the Marxist]

25 minutes ago, TMP said:

I get that this forum is largely a place to discuss the financial metrics of a movie’s performance, but i have no idea why you’d want Furiosa to be a worse movie just so it’d be more commercially viable. Like surely we should be happy a movie as bold and artistically rich as that even exists at all, especially in a summer movie season as dry as this one was. Just feels weird to have so much cynicism over something that’s so clearly an artistic passion project which paid off (quality wise at least) just because audiences didn’t turn up

I don’t think anybody is saying they wish the movie was worse? Just saying why the movie didn’t do well financially and the reasons for it. And I think we are allowed to give our reasons without some sort of “gee that movie sure was great” comment

[Ryan C]

I've said this before, but I'll say it again. The only real reason why Furiosa's underperformance really mattered was because it came out on Memorial Day weekend (a usually booming time for cinemas) and because it was the #1 movie (barely) on a weekend that just two years ago delivered the best 4 day Memorial Day opening of all-time with Top Gun: Maverick. 

 

Had Furiosa came out on any other weekend (besides maybe the first weekend of May as well), I don't think we would've seen as many doom and gloom posts about the box office as we did back in late May and early June. It's just that it was released on what eventually became the slowest Memorial Day weekend in almost 30 years and it unfortunately created a narrative that was being thrown out for at least two weeks until thankfully it was gone by the time Inside Out 2 came out. 

 

Also, remember that Furiosa was a prequel to a film that didn't even become much of a financial success nine years prior. What a twist of irony in the "cinema is dead" narrative that because a prequel and not an original didn't do well (along with The Fall Guy) it meant that no one likes going to the movies anymore. 

[Krissykins]

1 hour ago, Kon said:

This amount of audience over 25 age clearly shows the franchise appeal is for the old audience.

 

I doubt this movie will have so much success on attracting new audience or legs.

Excuse you! 

[Darth Lehnsherr]

It does seem a massive overreaction in hindsight having the failures of The Fall Guy and Furiosa signal the beginning of the end of theatrical. But at the time can understand it was hard to see light at the end of the tunnel during May.