The Alien franchise has had a rough time of it over the decades: Alien 3's production nightmares are well-documented, Resurrection felt like more of a parody and Prometheus put a lot of people off by adding in philosophy in the place of phallic death monsters.
Alien: Covenant was meant to be a return to form for the franchise in the eyes of many, it was an R-rated movie with plenty of Xenomorphs and the marketing echoed the the tense horror of the original.
Unfortunately it looks like the American public were either not in the mood for another Alien and/or they were so burned by Prometheus they weren't willing to give Covenant a chance, as Forbes reports an 80% drop in turnouts for its second Friday.
Following on from its pretty disappointing $36 million opening weekend last week, it seems the film only managed to earn $3 million on Friday (May 26), compared to the $15.3 million it garnered seven days before.
The publication estimates the total worldwide box office gross will amount to $254 million, which isn't amazing compared to Prometheus' $405 million total.
Covenant was beaten in the box office by Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, which earned $5.3 million on Friday despite being released earlier. Baywatch, which grossed $5.7 million, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (Salazar's Revenge in the UK), which grossed over $23 million, both dominated the box office.
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Another week at the top of the US box office isn't looking too likely for Covenant then. Maybe Fox should go ahead with Neill Blomkamp's planned Alien 5 starring Sigourney Weaver after all.
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Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016. In his time, he's covered a host of live events and interviewed celebrities big and small. A big fan of TV and movies both mainstream and obscure, Joe also enjoys video games and in particular PlayStation. Joe currently does not use Twitter, but he only ever used it to tell people to watch the film Help! I'm a Fish.
