‘Alita’ Battles Its Way To A Surprise Victory, But The Road To Profit Is A Long One [Box Office]

There’s promising news for “Alita: Battle Angel,” directed by Robert Rodriguez and produced by James Cameron. The 20^th Century Fox sci-fi blockbuster, rumored to cost around $200 million+ (official number is $170M), made $36.516 for the weekend, and around $42 million for the entire Thursday-to-Monday frame of its President’s Day long weekend release. This news is heartening news for Cameron, Rodriguez, and Fox. ‘Alita,’ which received mixed reviews—which admittedly grew better closer to release—was expected to be a huge financial flop. ‘Alita’ was initially scheduled for release during December 2018, the same weekend when “Bumblebee” and ”Aquaman” were hitting theaters.

READ MORE: ‘Alita: Battle Angel’ Is A Noble, Jaw-Dropping Spectacle [Review]

Knowing they would lose that battle badly, especially given the tracking estimates predicting a terrible opening for ‘Alita,’ Fox jumped ship and pushed the movie to February, something that made the film look like a kind of loser: it couldn’t stand the December heat and had to get out of the kitchen. But this February release has turned out to be a super solid one for the movie. “Alita” definitely exceeded box office tracking predictions, earned an A- Cinemascore from audiences, and its daily grosses practically doubled each day in theaters from Thursday to Saturday. Having grossed $130 million worldwide so far after one weekend, this is pretty promising news that was expected to be a colossal write-down for Fox. Rodriguez is good with family fare too and the PG-13 film could still find a wider audience in the weeks to come.

READ MORE: 11 Movies To See In February

But ‘Alita’s battle is far from over. The movie cost $200 million-ish, a major studio release like this is going to cost an additional $50-60 million to market, and the Rodriguez/Cameron spectacle will likely need to hit at least $450 million worldwide to be seen as a bare minimum, break-even “success” (Deadline says $500-$550M, so I’m being really conservative). As THR says the 20^th Century Fox movie “will need to have strong legs domestically and do huge business overseas if it isn’t to lose tens of millions and become the first big-budget miss of the year.” That’s an understatement, frankly. “Alita” still has a China release to come and a massive opening there will be crucial and make or break. The film has yet to open in several international territories—the U.K., Russia, France, much of Europe—so there’s still some tiny hope, but it’ll need to sit in theaters for a long time and not drop its audience from weekend to weekend to expect a chance at salvation.

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“The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part” faced a better narrative in week two. Although it made one half of what its predecessor opened to in 2014, ‘LEGO 2’ showed a strong hold in week two, only dropping -37.8%, and posting another $21 million to its name. The picture certainly will never match the original’s box office heights, but if it can inch up to say $150 million domestically, perhaps it’ll show there’s still some life left in this franchise. It is a kids and family film, and they tend to stick around in theaters for weeks—see ‘Spider-Verse’ which has been in theaters for ten weeks now and has crawled its way up to $182 million domestically. With an undoubted Oscar-win around the corner, this is likely a movie that will finally hit $200M at home.

WB’s “Isn’t It Romantic?” with Rebel Wilson did decent business for this kind of film—$14 million for its opening weekend and already at $20 million domestic. It’s not huge, but these kinds of romcoms are usually modestly budgeted and similarly, tend to stick around in theaters for several weeks. Perhaps the underperformer of the weekend was Universal’s Blumhouse horror “Happy Death Day 2U” which some thought was actually going to win the weekend from ‘Alita’ in early projections. Instead, the horror comedy sequel opened to $9.8 million and came in at the fifth slot of the top 10. Considering the movie only cost $9 million and has already made $13 million total, the inexpensive Blumhouse film is going to be fine, but the company is probably slightly disappointed given the expectations.

The rest of the weekend was fairly unremarkable, but the story was all about strong grips on the box office. “The Upside” only fell 21% in its sixth week and has nearly cracked $100 million domestically, a figure it will most certainly crack if not next weekend, the one after. Paramount’s “What Men Want” only fell 40% in week two as well. Five weeks in to release and “Glass” is still in the top 10 and has cracked $100 million and Oscar-contender “Green Book” is still in theaters 14 weeks later, only dropped -20.1% and has made $65 million. The Oscar race has been a strange one this year, movies of controversy like “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Green Book” charting in contention far more than pundits thought they would be, but if anything is going to upset “Roma” for Best Picture, it’s definitely “Green Book” which has a strong shot at winning the big prize.

In limited release, “Fighting with My Family” won this smaller frame, $131,625 from four theaters for a $32,906 per screen average. And the Janus re-release of “War and Peace” was a smash hit for this kind of film. $22,000 this weekend from just one theater which is a sign of health in the repertory industry. “Ruben Brandt, Collector” totally flopped and Hong Sang-Soo’s “Hotel by the River” could only make 5k from 1 theater.

1. Alita: Battle Angel — $27,800,000 -$41,716,232)
2.  The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part — $21,215,000 ($62,690,359)
3. Isn’t It Romantic — $14,210,000  ($20,455,347)
4. What Men Want — $10,920,000 ($36,150,328)
5. Happy Death Day 2U—$9,816,000 ($13,527,500)
6. Cold Pursuit— $6,000,000 ($21,122,332 )
7. The Upside— $5,590,000 ($94,197,031)
8. Glass— $3,859,000 ($104,489,915)
9 .The Prodigy— $3,150,065 ($11,015,539)
10. Green Book— $2,751,000 ($65,756,401)