As expected, after several weeks at the top of the box office heap, Disney’s superhero blockbuster, Deadpool & Wolverine, finally dropped out of the top spot this weekend. According to Deadline‘s numbers, it was beaten at the box office by Fede Álvarez’s well-reviewed Alien: Romulus, which opened right within our expectations with a $41 million opening.

While somewhat modest by tentpole standards, this opening is actually the second biggest ever for an Alien movie, behind Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, which opened to $51 million in 2012. Given the modest $80 million budget, Romulus will no doubt be seen as a major win for the studio, especially given that it’s having an unexpectedly huge weekend internationally, with a $108 million global debut. No one expected it to do that kind of business overseas, but it’s playing extremely well in China, despite a general downturn at the box office there as far as American films go.

While only in second place, Deadpool & Wolverine still posted a terrific $29 million weekend, with it now having a mighty $543 million domestic gross. Blake Lively’s It Ends With Us also cleaned up at the box office this weekend, making a terrific $24 million, which is a modest 52% drop since last weekend. This one is turning out to be a date night favourite despite rumoured strife behind the scenes…

However, the box office picture was a lot less rosy for Eli Roth’s video game adaptation, Borderlands. It posted a disastrous 74% drop, grossing only $2.2 million this weekend—landing it in ninth place. With a $13 million domestic gross, this will undoubtedly go down as one of the worst box office disasters ever.

Meanwhile, Universal’s Twisters, despite already being available on VOD, made $9.2 million this weekend, for a strong domestic total of $237 million. Another box office surprise was the 15th-anniversary re-release of Coraline, which posted huge numbers for Fathom Events, grossing $8.3 million. It ate into some of the family audience for hold-overs Despicable Me 4 and Inside Out 2, with the former making $5.5 million in sixth place, with a $339 million total, and the latter $2.9 million for a huge $641 million total. Between them was M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap, which grossed $3.25 million for a $35 million domestic total, which has to be disappointing for distributor Warner Bros. The top ten was rounded out by another Bollywood film, Stree 2, which made $2 million.

With the dog days of summer upon us, next weekend promises to be a quiet one at the box office, with Lionsgate’s reboot of The Crow and the Channing Tatum thriller Blink Twice vying for the top spot at the box office. Do you think either has a chance of dethroning Alien: Romulus? Let us know in the comments. 

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