Weekend Box Office: Good News And Bad News For ‘Alien: Covenant’

Covenant is a direct sequel to Prometheus, set ten years after the events of that film and 18 years before the first Alien.

“It does endure the test of time”, said Chris Aronson, the studio’s head of distribution, “as does Sir Ridley Scott”. Overseas playings of the film will likely bring in hundreds of millions more in revenue. Scott presents Alien: Covenant as a sequel, but also as an Alien reboot of sorts with the film nearly being spilt into two parts. (Did they happen, did they not?) That said, there are still some concerns about whether the Alien franchise has the legs for two more sequels.

From the cast of “Alien: Convenant”, actress Katherine Waterson arrives on the red carpet ahead of Sir Ridley Scott’s Hand and Footprint ceremony in front of the TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California, on May 17, 2017. Covenant scored a 73% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, just slightly above Prometheus’ 72%.

Also of note is the continuing struggles of Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, which plummeted from third to sixth to double underline its status as an expensive box office turkey.

Per ComScore, overall box office is up 2.5 percent in the same frame from previous year.

Michael Fassbender returns as the synthetic life form David, who’s been stranded in the tombs beneath the city for years. Then the franchise took a turn for the worse.

With each passing Alien film, we are introduced to a new group of people who come into contact with the xenomorphs.

While that’s far from the most expensive promotional campaign Hollywood’s ever seen, it’s quite a bit of money, especially for a project that doesn’t hail from DC or Marvel, or have Star Wars in the title. With the promise of more alien action and stronger word-of-mouth, Alien: Covenant should do some solid business at the box office. Chestburster is just never going to be for everyone. David has been experimenting in the creation of the murderous xenomorph moviegoers will know from the original Alien series. It’s possible, if the colony mission ends up being a success (we’re not entirely sure by the end of the film), that this is where Ripley could come into play. Not to mention one is family-friendly sci-fi fantasy, and the other, gruesome, R-rated sci-fi horror. The fact that the movie was so full of plot holes and flat-out stupid behavior by its characters, and, most importantly, didn’t have Ripley, or anyone near Ripley’s charisma, strength and smarts, made me anxious for the future of the franchise.