Disney blockbuster Alien: Romulus crawls into 676 cinemas at this weekend’s UK-Ireland box office, as the first title in the franchise since 2017’s Alien: Covenant.
Directed by Fede Alvarez, Alien: Romulus is set between the events of 1979’s Alien and 1986’s Aliens, and sees a group of young space colonists scavenging a derelict space station and coming face-to-face with a xenomorph alien.
Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues wrote the script, based on characters by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett. Civil War and Priscilla star Cailee Spaeny leads the cast, alongside Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced and Screen Stars of Tomorrow David Jonsson and Spike Fearn.
Ridley Scott’s original Alien was a huge hit in the UK and Ireland in 1979, grossing £7.9m (equivalent to £37.6m today). Multiple re-releases since then have added more than £1m to that amount.
The Alien anthology has produced seven films to date including Romulus; plus two crossover titles, 2004’s Alien vs. Predator and 2007’s Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem.
This is the first to be released by Disney, with the franchise previously operating under the auspices of Fox, before Disney acquired it in 2019. In a promising sign for Disney, 2017’s Alien: Covenant is the highest-grossing title in the series, making £12.9m after a £4.8m opening. The studio will hope the seven-year break combined with an absence of comparable competition in cinemas will allow Romulus to beat that mark.
Romulus is a fourth feature for Uruguayan filmmaker Alvarez, who has worked predominantly in the genre space. His debut hailed from another popular franchise – 2013’s Evil Dead (£3.4m), while his most recent film was 2018’s The Girl In The Spider’s Web (£1.1m).
Counter-programming this weekend arrives in the form of Signature Entertainment’s eco-focused family animation Ozi: Voice of the Forest in 390 cinemas. The debut feature of UK filmmaker Tim Harper, the film tells the story of an orphaned orangutan who uses her skills as a social media influencer to save her forest and home from deforestation
Amandla Stenberg, Dean-Charles Chapman, Djimon Hounsou, Laura Dern, RuPaul and the late Donald Sutherland are among the voice cast; with producers including Leonardo DiCaprio through his Appian Way Productions, and executive producer Mike Medavoy.
Ozi debuted at Annecy Film Festival in June 2023. The film recorded £14,403 in previews last weekend.
Indian influx
Indian films continue to make their presence felt at the UK-Ireland box office, with four new releases this weekend spanning a range of genres.
Bakrania Media is opening Amar Kaushik’s comedy-horror Stree 2, in which a town is haunted by a headless entity, in 120 cinemas. Indian stars Akshay Kumar, Rajkummar Rao and Tamannaah Bhatia are among the cast; the first Stree film made £58,697 in 2018, since when the bar has raised significantly for cinema from the country.
The distributor is also facilitating AA Films’ 67-site release of comedy Khel Khel Mein, also starring Kumar, in which a group of friends gather for dinner and end up revealing secrets about each other.
Zee Studios is opening Nikkhil Advani’s action thriller Vedaa starring John Abraham and Sharvari Wagh; while Dreamz Entertainment starts Harish Shankar’s Mr. Bachchan, based on the real-life income tax raid conducted on Indian industrialist Sardar Inder Singh.
Among independent arthouse releases, Picturehouse Entertainment is starting Shujun Wei’s Chinese crime drama Only The River Flows in 57 cinemas. Adapted from Yu Hua’s novella Mistakes by the River, the film follows a police officer in the 1990s investigating a series of murders in a Chinese riverside town. It debuted in Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2023, before an extensive festival tour including Jerusalem, Athens, London, Busan and Chicago.
Curzon is opening Ibrahim Nash’at’s documentary Hollywoodgate in 32 sites. A Venice 2023 out of Competition title, it depicts the occupation of the Hollywood Gate complex in Kabul, Afghanistan, immediately after the US withdrawal from the country in 2021.
Vue Entertainment is opening children’s comic book adventure Ryan’s World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure in 90 cinemas; while Dogwoof has Chelsea McMullan’s ballet documentary Swan Song.
Re-releases this weekend include a 15th -anniversary edition of Henry Selick’s stop-motion favourite Coraline through Trafalgar Releasing, following an event cinema opening on Thursday 15; the latest Spider-Man title, Spider-Man 3, in 537 sites through Sony; and John Sayles’ Texas-set mystery Lone Star in 19 sites this week through Park Circus.
Two holdovers will provide the main challenge to Alien: Romulus at the top of the charts: Sony’s domestic abuse drama It Ends With Us, which started with an excellent £4.5m last time out; and Disney’s former number one Deadpool & Wolverine, already past the £40m mark and climbing the all-time UK-Ireland list.
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