Aliens are coming, run for your life! Or at least that’s what Hollywood would have you think with the influx of films involving extraterrestrial life forms trying to take over our beloved green planet. Just in May we’ve had three such films, probably some kind of record.
Anyway, I’m thinking we should take a look at the top 10 highest grossing alien invasion flicks of all time, worldwide (unadjusted for inflation). For a film to be eligible, it has to feature an alien invasion somewhere in there even if it’s not the main focus of the story.
10. Monsters vs Aliens (2009) $381.5 million – The only animated flick on this list comes from DreamWorks and pulled one of the craziest marketing stunts in quite some time. Remember those green-magenta glasses they gave everyone for free and that 2 minute 3D clip during the Super Bowl break? So a very expensive flick ($175 million) with a crazy marketing budget had a good box office run when it actually needed a spectacular one. Suffice to say, DreamWorks were not happy so they scrapped any plans for a sequel.
9. Signs (2002) $408.2 million – After The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, M. Night Shyamalan was making an alien invasion flick so everyone got excited. Fortunately Signs mostly lived up to those expectations and featured the same tense atmosphere, chills and twists we came to expect from the director. Also, in a time when CGI was starting to take over everything, Shyamalan used actual people in suits to play the aliens.
8. Men in Black II (2002) $441.8 million – I have to be honest, I found this very much entertaining back when I saw it in theaters. Looking back now I can tell you that this was a lazy sequel partially saved by a pug (what can I say, I’m a dog guy) but definitely not worthy of its title.
7. Men in Black (1997) $589.4 million – I lost count how many times I’ve seen this and it’s easily one of my top 5 childhood favorites. Unfortunately I don’t have a story as cool as Ben’s, so without sounding too biased I’ll leave you with a simple watch Men in Black.
6. War of the Worlds (2005) $591.7 million – Steven Spielberg directed this adaptation of the classic H.G. Wells sci-fi novel, basically the inspiration for most modern alien invasion flicks we have today. So such a film in those hands had to be great, right, right? Yes and no, but mostly yes, for me at least. Note that before Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, this used to be the most successful Tom Cruise film.
5. Transformers (2007) $709.7 million – The aliens here aren’t exactly what we’ve come to expect from this sub-genre but robots still count, right? Being a fan of the animated series, I was very much looking forward to Michael Bay’s rendition of the popular universe and while it wasn’t exactly what I expected, it did not disappoint me.
4. Independence Day (1996) $817.4 million – Will Smith is here to save Earth again, this time from squid creatures in gigantic flying saucers. Call me what you want but I loved this film and still find it entertaining to watch.
3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) $836.3 million – Big robots make BOOOOM!
2. Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) $1,123.7 million – You got to love the way Michael Bay introduces his female lead in this film (camera on her assets) and unlike Revenge of the Fallen, this actually had some kind of a story, just don’t ask me what that was cause I honestly can’t remember.
1. Marvel’s The Avengers (2012) $1,305.4 million – You knew this was coming so here it is, the biggest blockbuster since Avatar. And yes, spoilers (if you haven’t seen a single piece of media from the film), aliens invade Earth here. What the ugly bastards didn’t know was that Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Thor, Black Widow and Hawkeye were the welcome party. The Avengers is the very definition of a summer blockbuster and if you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a favor and correct that mistake.
In the intro I said we’ve had no less then three alien invasion flicks this month, one is on here (Marvel’s The Avengers), another you can guess (Men in Black III) while the 3rd is Battleship. But enough with this big budget expensive flicks, let me tell you about a little alien invasion feature called Attack the Block. Attack the Block is great and you should see it. Anything more and it’s just wasted time that you could use to start watching Attack the Block right now, really, do it, now!
Why are you still here, go watch Attack the Block.