The reversal in fortune began after a rough May that saw The Fall Guy, a potential franchise newbie, spin out at the box office, followed by the blowout of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga ($172 million globally), which had followed the triumphant relaunch of the series with Mad Max: Fury Road ($380 million) in 2015. The one bright spot of May was Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, one of the numerous film properties Disney’s film empire inherited after the larger acquisition of Fox assets in 2019.
Apes was a crucial test in the post-Disney merger, and it passed; the movie grossed nearly $400 million globally, enough to fulfill filmmaker Wes Ball’s dream of a new trilogy. Alien: Romulus, released in August, was another successful test of the 20th Century-Disney marriage (the pic has grossed north of $300 million globally, the second-best showing of the franchise behind 2012’s Prometheus, not adjusted for inflation).