JUST: Alien Covenant underperforms at the weekend box office

>4th Writethru, Sunday AM: All sequelitis aside, what made 20th Century Fox’s Alien:Covenant slow down at the box office?

>Initially the Ridley Scott-directed movie looked like it was coming in at $40M, which would have repped the second best opening in the Alien franchise, but now at $36M it’s the third best behind Prometheus ($51M) and 2004’s Alien v. Predator ($38.3M).

>As major studios look for new franchises to mine, and the Alien origin stories looked very promising, this is not what any studio executive hopes for, especially with a vintage brand like Alien. If Star Wars and Jurassic Park can boost their grosses off of both old fans and new, why can’t Alien?

>For a moment last night, one distributor even predicted that Disney/Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 might beat the Prometheus sequel for No. 1 after a 70% surge Saturday over Friday with $15 million. But Disney is calling second place for GOTG2 with $35.1M in its third weekend and a running cume of $301.7M.

>From a marketing perspective, what went amiss with Alien: Covenant was the fact that in its materials Fox went strictly after the Alien fanboy crowd versus the general lay moviegoers who determine how big your movie is going to be. Some fans griped that Prometheus lacked the classic Xenomorph alien, so Fox in their materials sold the picture with a focus on the old Alien, the one everyone was supposedly wanted.

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Alien Covenant
>lets try a creation type story
>failure

Ridley Scott is senile

HHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

What went wrong was they spoiled the entire movie with the trailers

You see like four characters die just in the trailers and then you see the xeno bumping around on top of the ship in daylight.

Also, the origin story of the alien and space jockey is pure shit.

Some of those scenes aren't in the final movie though

I don't remember what was or wasn't in it from the yrsilers, but they definitely didn't leave any suspense

The ending was leaked months ago, and everyone was saying there's no way they would do something as cliche as David switching with Walter.

>If Star Wars and Jurassic Park can boost their grosses off of both old fans and new, why can’t Alien?
>Some fans griped that Prometheus lacked the classic Xenomorph alien, so Fox in their materials sold the picture with a focus on the old Alien, the one everyone was supposedly wanted.

how about making a movie with a purpose that isn't fucking money

good. maybe they'll stop making them now

Charlize theron geting blacked by idris elba did it for me

I avoided the trailers like the plague and there still wasn't any suspense. The movie was poorly paced and completely predictable. It was bad.

Only cost 90m it'll be fine.

>Studio: lets make a prequel series of alien
>Ridley: I want it to be 2deep4u kino,so let's remove the alien
Studio: This shit makes no sense, put the alien back on for the sequel
>Ridley: Say no more

>Turn a a million year old alien fossil into a suit of a greek god infected by a human android created just 20 years before alien
>Mad that old alien fans do't like it

The problem with "using a vintage brand like Alien" is that the brand is literally only good for telling one type of story and that is one where a bunch of clueless idiots get into a situation they can't handle.

And the audience is sick of that already since it plays out the same every time.

Too bad they can't not shit on AvP.

They'd have a lot of freedom for horror and action, if they could stop the tropes

So next Alien is PG-13 summer fun?

Sheeeeeeet

kikes are so successful are dumbing western civilization down to the point that the average person is little more than meat with eyeballs that only wants to watch capeshit.

Prometheus should've been its own thing and unrelated to the Alien franchise.

That would open it up to different patterns of storytelling.

Instead we got TWO movies now where a bunch of "professionals" abandon all protocol and act like idiots only to get killed off one by one because of their stupidity.

I think people are forgetting that Scott's not some penniless nobody. Looking at his box office history he'll be fine regardless of how Covenant performs. I really doubt Fox is gonna take the Alien franchise away from him, especially since Scott's the original director and in general such a big name that he can't be pushed around by execs.

What are you even trying to say?

That Scott "owns" the franchise? No he doesn't.
In order to make the next one he needs funding coming from a studio that owns the IP.
If a movie underperforms they will simply not greenlight the sequel or delay it.

You're talking like Scott both owns the IP and pays for the movie himself.

>especially since Scott's the original director and in general such a big name that he can't be pushed around by execs.

A big name with a series of senile hack tier movies.

At this point just say fuck it and make a totally unattached alien movie that Scott can't get his mushy brained claws into.

>missing the point entirely
so this is the power... of reddit

>If Star Wars and Jurassic Park can boost their grosses off of both old fans and new, why can’t Alien?
Because Alien fans, unlike Star Wars fans are not shit eaters who would eat any turd. Jurassic Park is for kids mostly because WOW DINOSAURS!
Prometheus was so fucking trash it broke the camel's back. I'm not going to bother with Covenant - which is the continuation of an old, senile and demented Alzheimer faggot fucking the corpse of Prometheus.

They tried way too hard to 'reinvent' Ripley

Every Alien-related movie doesn't need a Ripley clone. Try out some other characterization

Also, I wasn't even expecting David from any of the ads I saw. I would've been mega hyped if I knew that beforehand

This. Ridley already said that the next one will cost even less

Have we started the fire?

Fox wasn't scared away from working with Scott after Kingdom of Heaven or Exodus, why would this be the tipping point?

>f Star Wars and Jurassic Park can boost their grosses off of both old fans and new, why can’t Alien?

R rating

also no reddit humor cool factor like Deadpool

When you make a tedious movie with zero suspense, people stop going to see it?

>didn't expect david

I am shocked that you are capable of solving a captcha

how can anyone be surprised by this?
Prometheus' extreme disappointment had already set this movie up for failure. Even if it were actually good it would have still underperformed.

It's like if they made a new Mass Effect game.. ME: Andromeda sold alright because of the ME brand name, but if they make another one, the damage done to the brand by Andromeda's disappointment will destroy its sales no matter what

why the fuck are they using AUGs

how hard is it to make a sci fi gun

also the woman looks weak, Noomi was better even though she was fucking annoying

>waking up a fucking space jockey, tense as shit
>ASK HIM WHY HE DID IT! SCREAM SCREAM SCREAM

well fuck me for expecting prometheus and alien to be separate franchises a bit longer

most iconic sci-fi guns are just regular gun / replicas with random shit glued on them

Don't worry, I'm sure the third time will be the charm.

It'll need 200 million to be a success.

youtube.com/watch?v=LjLamj-b0I8
This is how you do a trailer.

...

You should go count how many of Scott's movies have earned twice their budget globally.

Wait

In AvP aren't we led to believe the xenomorphs have been around for thousands of years? The Predators were breeding them for sport in an ancient earth pyramid

But now we see that they are created hundreds of years into our future, by a man-made machine

Was hoping that flute scene would have been David re-programming Walter

Principal photography for this movie alone cost 111 million dollars.

i saw this on friday, there were like 30-40 people in there
it was the second day it was in cinemas here in germany

I wish I could go back in time and not buy a ticket.

>why would this be the tipping point?

Because it's a seriously potential franchise killer. Not something you want to see when you're trying to make long term profits

Kingdom of Heaven and Exodus were forgetful one offs no one cares about.

The alien franchise already died once.

>Alien vs. Predator

I don't get the hate.

If they expanded on this they could clearly establish an intergalactic warfare series where humanity is stuck in a war between Alien species.

The Prometheans weaponized the xenomorphs for a reason.

Who were they fighting?

SURE CAN'T WAIT FOR A FLOOD OF BLOG EDITORIALS BLAMING ITS FAILURE AT THE BOX OFFICE ON PEOPLE REJECTING FEMALE PROTAGONISTS. AGAIN.

Thanks - this is what was bothering me so much and couldn't quite put my finger on it until I re-watched Alien again post-Covenant. The first time you see that ship and the fossilized space jockey it builds a much larger mystery in your mind making humans feel vastly insignificant and vulnerable. Also the size difference was greater in Alien, the jockey was much bigger, making the humans feel like little kids. Scott had to fuck that up in Prometheus so we could get face-to face with the humans and engineers in a two-shot.

really makes you think

David made them again because the yautjas hunted them to extinction

>they could clearly establish an intergalactic warfare series where humanity is stuck in a war between Alien species

this is what they tried to do with Independence Day 2

but how long until yautja vs engineer?

>this is what they tried to do with Independence Day 2

Explain, I didn't watch it.

Ridley fucked the entire Alien franchine,

Instead of the Alien creature being these primordial biological creatures that were perfect killing machines waiting for some unsuspecting people to take them from their home planet and unleashing them to the universe - they are now creations of some nutso android created by humans. FUCKING STUPID. Nevermind that if David really wanted to created the ultimate killing instrument, he had them in those spores that all you needed was to breathe them in or have them enter your ear and then a few hours later, you DIED. Who the fuck needed aliens in the 1st place ??

"In the end, it is the mystery that lasts and not the explanation."

That's what he missed. The power of the viewer's imagination is far stronger than any backstory he could have come up with. These prequel films were doomed from the start.

>Instead of the Alien creature being these primordial biological creatures that were perfect killing machines

They weren't perfect. They can easily be killed by a few mid caliber rounds. They're silicate based so they're basically walking glass creatures with acid blood. Their strength was intelligence and close range lethality.

In Alien Ripley had a chance of survival by using her wits, in Aliens the Marines had weapons.

The problem with the Neomorphs is now they're bulletproof, completely destroying the survivability any human encounter and thus any actual tension.

You're better off not knowing

Neomorphs aren't bullet proof, the crew were just terrible shots.

>potential franchise killer
>when it made more than Alien and Aliens

I don't think it's ONLY that. It's that now the xeno was created in large part by humanity. Honestly, who ever wanted this to be the case? It's ALIEN, not partly-human.

I paid four bongs to see this pile of shit and still feel cheated. Give me my money back Ridley.

FOOL

NO ONE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT FUCKING COLONISTS, PEOPLE WANT TO SEE MARINES VS XENOS

You think Ridley's nonsensical bullshit is better than Marvel? Fuck that.

It's made beaucoup money overseas already. US box office doesn't mean a whole lot now.

blame fox for forcing him to shove xenos in it

How long until his fanboys claim the directors cut is one of the great films of all time?

maybe if they had an 80s cheese tune track playing and poop jokes in the trailer this would be a hit?

SHOULD HAVE MADE THE FOREVER WAR YOU OLD COCKSUCKER!!!FACT!!!

They made a new Alien movie? This is new news to me.

If I see that fucking cat one more time...