Can IT ENDS WITH US And ALIEN: ROMULUS Be August Breakouts?

Every now and again, a film comes along that takes off seemingly out of nowhere. As we enter August, two films are showing impressive gains in tracking: IT ENDS WITH US and ALIEN: ROMULUS.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, given that neither are entirely unknown properties. ENDS is based on a wildly popular book, not unlike 2022’s WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING. And, of course, ROMULUS is part of the 45-year-old ALIEN franchise. And yet, just a few weeks ago, there was little to suggest that either was on a path towards breaking out.

If we rewind to three weeks ago, ENDS was tracking a bit lower than CRAWDADS, which debuted to $17M. A month ago, The Quorum projected an opening between $14M and $17M for ENDS. Since then, interest has soared, especially among women, where it now sits well ahead of CRAWDADS at the same distance from release.

On top of that, unaided awareness has climbed to 4%, which is in line with MEAN GIRLS. That film launched to $29M earlier this year.

As a result, our forecast for ENDS now has it opening in the mid-$20Ms. With two weeks to go, could the film find itself opening above $30M? Sure. It depends on whether the acceleration we’ve seen over the past two weeks continues over the next 14 days.

As for ROMULUS, it belongs to a franchise whose legacy is greater than its box office prowess. The first two films in the series are considered all time classics, and performed well theatrically. ALIEN was the 5th highest-grossing film of 1979, with a $79M haul. Coincidentally, ALIENS was the 5th highest-grossing film of 1986 at $85M.

While PROMETHIUS – featuring the return of director Ridley Scott for the first time since the original film – opened to $51M and grossed $126M in total in 2012, none of the other films in the Aliens franchise have debuted above $40M. PROMETHIUS remains the only film to make over $100M total (unadjusted, of course).

With that history in mind, it would be reasonable to think that ROMULUS, with a genre director not named Ridley Scott or James Cameron, a cast of young up-and-comers, and a very late summer release date, would be a modest performer. However, there appears to be a sizable appetite for ROMULUS as the tracking numbers continue to rise.

Let’s look at the numbers. The chart below shows awareness for ROMULUS (dark yellow) and two other August releases: BLINK TWICE (light yellow) and THE CROW (brown). While awareness for BLINK and CROW has moved very little, RUMULUS soared from 30% to 39% over the past two weeks.

ROMULUS is also showing nice gains on the interest side, rising from 44% to 48% over the past two weeks. It now sits above BLINK (light blue) and CROW (black).

With DESPCABLE ME 4, TWISTERS, and DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE opening in July, we always knew the summer would be backloaded. But expectations were not especially high for August. This is especially welcome news for an industry that has suffered through yo-yo highs and lows over the past few years.