Box Office Battle: “Alien: Romulus” wins weekend with $41.5M debut

“Box Office Battle” is The Fly’s weekly roundup of what movies topped the weekend’s box office.

In busy weekend, Disney (DIS) and 20th Century’s “Alien: Romulus” won the North American box office with a $45.1M debut, which was well ahead of the expected $20M range. Overseas, the movie grossed an estimated $66.7M for a worldwide tally of $108.2M. The eighth installment in the Alien franchise, which is set between the events of Ridley Scott’s 1979 “Alien” and James Cameron’s 1986 sequel “Aliens,” sports an 82% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes and received a B+ CinemaScore. “Romulus” was originally expected to go straight to streaming and debut on Disney-owned Hulu.

BOX OFFICE RUNNER-UPS: Disney and Marvel’s “Deadpool & Wolverine” placed number 2 with $29M as it became the top-grossing R-rated film of all time at the global box office. Behind it was Sony‘s (SONY) “It Ends With Us,” directed by Justin Baldoni and starring and produced by Blake Lively, with $24M in its sophomore outing. Comcast (CMCSA) subsidiary Universal’s “Twisters” placed number 4 with $9.8M for a domestic cume of $238.4M and $333.4M globally. Rounding out the top five, “Coraline – 15th Anniversary” earned an estimated $8.4M.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE:

1. “Alien: Romulus” – $41.5M
2. “Deadpool & Wolverine” – $29M
3. “It Ends With Us” – $24M
4. “Twisters” – $9.8M
5. “Coraline – 15th Anniversary” – $8.4M

Other publicly traded companies in filmmaking include Lionsgate’s (LGF.B), Paramount (PARA), Warner Bros. (WBD), Apple (AAPL), and Amazon (AMZN).