Alien: Romulus Bursts Into Theaters With $108 Million Global Opening Weekend

The "Alien" movie franchise might have had its up and downs in terms of quality, but one area where it's been remarkably consistent is at the box office. Even underperforming entries like "Alien: Covenant" and "Alien: Resurrection" more or less broke even in theaters. Following the franchise high of 2012's "Prometheus" and the subsequent financial downturn of "Covenant," it looks like horror director Fede Álvarez has steered the series back to safety with "Alien: Romulus."

Per the Hollywood Reporter, "Romulus" has pulled out ahead of earlier tracking with a $45.1 million domestic opening weekend. Add a similarly better-than-expected $66.7 million from overseas ticket sales, and the sci-fi horror sequel has scored a $108.2 million debut worldwide. That's an especially good start given that "Alien: Romulus" had a more conservative budget than "Alien: Covenant" — around $80 million before marketing, according to Variety. Like Álvarez's earlier horror movie "Don't Breathe," "Romulus" was shot in Hungary and benefited from the country's generous tax incentives. 

A $45.1 million domestic debut is the second best in the franchise so far. "Prometheus" still leads the pack with its $51 million opening weekend, and obviously inflation is a significant factor since "Alien" movies don't release all that frequently (there have only been four since the turn of the millennium). Overall, though, this is a very good start for "Romulus" on the commercial front. But what do the fans think?

Based on opening night audience polling, "Alien: Romulus" received a B+ CinemaScore — the highest of any entry in the series except for James Cameron's "Aliens," which scored a franchise-high A grade back in 1986. "Romulus" currently has a score of 81% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

Beyond the numbers (and letters), opinions on the movie are mixed — not in the sense of people either loving it or hating it, but in the sense that the generally positive response comes with a few major caveats. Fans are in love with the production design (full of the grungy, retro aesthetics of the original movie) and the creature design (there's a new and horrifying variation on the traditional Xenomorph), particularly because both lean heavily on practical effects rather than CGI. David Jonsson, who plays the glitchy synthetic character Andy, has been highlighted as the MVP of the cast. There's also a lot of love for star Cailee Spaeny as Rain, Andy's adoptive sister and the successor to Sigourney Weaver's alien-slaying heroine Ripley. In contrast, the supporting characters have been criticized for being thinly-written alien fodder.

"Alien: Romulus" does lay the fan service on thick, but ironically a lot of fans didn't really like that. They were delighted by nods to more niche corners of the franchise, particularly the video game "Alien: Isolation," but characters plainly repeating famous lines from other "Alien" movies has induced as many eye rolls as claps. And the decision to bring an original "Alien" actor back from the dead using digital necromancy has proven pretty unpopular — whether because of the uncanny valley effect, the dubious ethics, or both.

"Alien: Romulus" is playing in theaters now.