One of the most popular and enduring horror film series of all time is undoubtedly the Foreigner franchise, which began in 1979 with Foreigner and is still going strong in 2024. The franchise’s long and storied history has had its ups and downs, as the series has gone from its relatively simple sci-fi horror roots to the massive and complicated Foreigner timeline as we know it today, but a major issue with all long-running franchises is how well the films tend to do when it comes to the box office.
THE Foreigner The franchise has been surprisingly consistent with its release schedule, releasing films, whether they are full additions to the franchise or crossovers with other media, every five to seven years on average.. Although the series has never been among the biggest earners as Star Wars or the MCU at its peak, every film in the Foreigner The franchise has been successful in one way or another without any major failures, although that doesn’t mean there haven’t been some disappointments.
9
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
Box office: US$ 128 million
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem is a 2007 science fiction horror film directed by the Strause brothers. The story follows a small Colorado town that becomes the battleground of an epic confrontation between the deadly Xenomorphs and the fearsome Predator. As chaos erupts, the city’s inhabitants must fight for their lives against these formidable extraterrestrial threats. The film stars Steven Pasquale, Reiko Aylesworth and John Ortiz.
With a total profit of US$128 million, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem remains the lowest-grossing film in the franchise since its release in 2007. While the first Alien vs. Predator the film performed well and was generally liked by fans of both franchises, but Requiem was completely unable to recover that success. The reported budget was US$40 million, so Requiem It wasn’t a huge failure, but clearly, the negative reviews alone were enough to cause Fox to pull the plug on the franchise.
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem It went wrong in some aspects, mainly the poor lighting, the weak story and characters and the wasted potential of the Predalien, the half-Xenomorph half-Predator hybrid. However, despite the film’s failure, a Alien vs. Predator 3 is still very possible given the continued success of the mainline Foreigner franchise.
8
Alien 3
Box office: US$159 million
Alien 3 is the sequel to 1992’s Aliens. Directed by David Fincher and starring Sigourney Weaver in her iconic role as Ellen Ripley, the third film in the Alien franchise follows Ripley as she leads a group of inmates in fighting a Xenomorph after her ship crashes on a prison planet.
Alien 3 was, of course, the third film in the franchise and unfortunately, everything seemed to go wrong before the film even went into production. The film had an extremely turbulent development, passing through several screenwriters and directors, before finally reaching David Fincher for his directorial debut. Filming began even before the script was finalized, and the final product shows that.
The film was widely panned, especially in comparison to the first two Foreigner films. James Cameron himself said that killing Newt, Hicks and Bishop was a “slap in the face“for him and the fans of aliens, while David Fincher said that Alien 3 was terrible and the production was horrible for him. While a $159 million return on a $50-60 million budget is nothing to scoff at, the reception and production issues meant that changes had to be made to keep the franchise afloat.
7
Alien Resurrection
Box office: US$ 160 million
After dying in Alien 3, Sigourney Weaver is back as Ellen Ripley for the fourth film in the Alien franchise. In Alien: Resurrection, a human/alien hybrid clone of Ripley stops aliens from coming to Earth with the help of a band of space pirates. The film was directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and written by Joss Whedon.
Alien Resurrection came out as the last of the original Foreigner series in 1997. The film continued the franchise’s lack of consistency when it came to directors, so Alien: Resurrection had French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet taking the reins. It was the last film starring Sigourney Weaver as Ripley and, unfortunately, as Alien 3it also failed to live up to the original duology, receiving very mixed reviews from critics and audiences.
By the fourth film in the series, the franchise was clearly becoming stale for many, and although Resurrection earned a little more money than Alien 3it also had an inflated budget of around $70 million. Without seeing significantly more box office success than the previous film and with a continued lack of critical and public support it became clear that the Foreigner the franchise would have to be shelved for some time.
6
AVP: Alien vs. Predator
Box office: US$ 172 million
AVP: Alien vs. Predator, released in 2004, follows a research team’s expedition to the Arctic, where they discover a buried pyramid. Unbeknownst to them, the location serves as a battleground where the Predators hunt Aliens, pushing the team into a deadly interspecies conflict.
AVP: Alien vs. Predator was the first film released in Foreigner franchise to not feature Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley. Since the last two main films did not receive the praise of the original, Fox decided to take the Foreigner franchise in an entirely new direction, and this was a crossover with the already very successful Predator franchise. The crossover felt so natural, having this exceptionally skilled group of hunters facing off against the ultimate lifeforms, the Xenomorphs.
It doesn’t share much of its DNA with the previous films.
Although few can say that Alien vs. Predator is a great artistic achievement, seeing these two classic cinema icons face off against each other is still a delight. It doesn’t share much of its DNA with the previous films, which tended toward more character-driven stories, but the monstrous action remains an enduring appeal of the franchise as a whole, and Alien vs. Predator there’s plenty of that.
5
Aliens
Box office: US$ 183 million
Aliens is a 1986 science fiction classic from writer and director James Cameron. Starring Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley, it is widely considered one of the best science fiction horror films ever made. Ripley must team up with a group of Colonial Marines to investigate a disaster at a terraforming colony.
Aliens is the second film in the franchise and, for many, it is still the peak of the series. Written and directed by James Cameron, replacing Ridley Scott, Aliens takes the concept, characters and world of the original film and greatly expands on them, giving the universe a depth that hadn’t been fully explored in Foreigner, introducing characters like Newt and Bishop, as well as debuting the Xenomorph Queen.
Aliens it was made on a production budget of $18.5 million and as such, the return of $183 million made this film a huge success. The film originally opened to $85 million at the box office, but its many re-releases in international markets have increased that number considerably.. Aliens It showed that the franchise wasn’t just a one-hit wonder, that there were many more stories to tell in this universe, and it’s certainly one of the reasons why the franchise continues to this day.
4
Foreigner
Box office: US$ 188 million
Alien, directed by Ridley Scott, is a science fiction horror film that follows the crew of the commercial spacecraft Nostromo. While investigating a distress signal on a distant moon, they discover a deadly extraterrestrial life form. The film stars Sigourney Weaver as Ripley and has become a seminal work in the science fiction and horror genres, known for its atmospheric tension and innovative visual effects.
Like the movie that started it all in 1979, Foreigner It was a huge success when it was released. With a budget of $11 million, which at the time would have been a lot of money, the film’s original release alone brought in $78 million, which, if adjusted for inflation, would easily surpass the rest of the franchise. The film’s status as a runaway success helped propel Ridley Scott and Sigourney Weaver to stardom, despite the fact that reviews were a bit mixed when the film was initially released.
Foreigner could easily be in the conversation for best films of all time, and its success led to the nearly 50-year-old franchise we know today. This first film created one of the best movie aliens of all time, and showcased a gritty, more grounded sci-fi world, a far cry from many other sci-fi properties of the time, such as Star Wars or Star Trek.
3
Alien: Alliance
Box office: US$238 million
Alien: Covenant, directed by Ridley Scott, follows the crew of the colony ship Covenant as they discover an unknown planet. Initially appearing like a paradise, the planet soon reveals dark secrets. Katherine Waterston, Michael Fassbender and Billy Crudup lead the cast of this sci-fi horror film, which serves as a direct sequel to Prometheus and continues to explore the origins of alien species.
As a film that made significantly more than some of the more beloved films on this list, saying that Alien: Alliance is the biggest financial disappointment of the franchise may seem like an exaggeration, but it seems to be true. Alien: Alliance was released in 2017, right in the modern era of Hollywood, where films were earning billions of dollars left and right. In the back PrometheusFox invested around $100 million into this film, hoping to continue building on the franchise’s success.
Direct sequels to this film were still being considered by Ridley Scott and the studio for years to come, but when Disney completed its acquisition of Fox in 2019.
Unfortunately, due to the mixed reviews of the previous film, audiences were hesitant to see this film, and when it appeared to be much more of the same, Covenant fell into oblivion, earning significantly less than Prometheus. Direct sequels to this film were still being considered by Ridley Scott and the studio for years to come, but when Disney completed its acquisition of Fox in 2019, these Covenant sequences have been archived.
2
Alien: Romulus
Box office: US$350 million
Alien: Romulus is the seventh film in the Alien franchise. The film is directed by Fede Álvarez and will focus on a new group of young characters who encounter the terrifying Xenomorphs. Alien: Romulus is an independent film and takes place in a time not yet explored in the Alien franchise.
Alien: Romulus was the first Foreigner project to be launched by Disney, after the financial failure of Alien: Alliance. The film marked the return of the franchise for many, creating a story much more similar to Foreigner or Aliens what Prometheus and Covenant, without ignoring what was created in these sequences. The film was a huge success, grossing $350 million on a relatively small (by modern standards) budget of $80 million.
Alien: Romulus‘financial success also managed to revitalize the series as a whole. After the disappointment of Covenant and the Disney acquisition, the future of the franchise was unclear. Although the seven-year gap between Romulo and Covenant It wasn’t unusual for the series; in the current media landscape, this long gap between films is a gamble, especially since the franchise seemed to be losing steam.
1
Prometheus
Box office: US$402 million
2012’s Prometheus is the fifth film in the Alien franchise and was directed by Ridley Scott. Starring Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Idris Elba and Guy Pearce, the film acts as a direct prequel to 1979’s Alien.
Prometheus came out at the right time to be a huge success for the franchise. The previous Foreigner film was Alien vs. Predator: Requiema film that had very limited success. Audiences were eager to see what would come next in the series, and having Ridley Scott, the director of the first film in the series, back to tell another story from the universe, gave many people reason to be excited about this film.
From the beginning, Prometheus seemed to be something very different, not simply repeating the same plot points and the same story told in the first four Foreigner films. Despite the film’s more mixed reviews, attaching Ridley Scott to the project and ensuring Prometheus asked enough questions and left enough mysteries unsolved was clearly enough to make the film a huge success and one of the biggest hits in the world. Foreigner franchise.