Meet the 14-Year-Old Star Who Beat Pedro Pascal, Tom Cruise & Aamir Khan at the Box Office in Just 3 Days

The third week of June was significant for releases world-wide. In India actors like Aamir Khan and Dhanush were returning to the big screen in Sitaare Zameen Par and Kuberaa. Pixar's Elio also hit movie theatres in the West. With already successful movies such as Materialists and Mission: Impossible 8 in theatres, a small-budget genre film with a 14-year-old lead actor performed exceptionally well to upstage everything else. Remarkably, this film earned back its budget the very first weekend.

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Danny Boyle's 28 Years Later was released in theatres this weekend. The horror survival thriller starred actors such as Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer, and Ralph Fiennes. However, a boy, played by 14-year-old budding star Alfie Williams, is the film's protagonist. It grossed a staggering $30million USD for its opening weekend at the US box office, totalling $60 million worldwide. Overall, this movie had the second-best collection for any movie released this weekend globally, just behind How to Train your Dragon. 28 Years Later outperformed the highly anticipated Pixar animated feature, Elio, which grossed a mere $36 million worldwide.

What was even more remarkable was how a film backed by a 14-year-old had its release overshadowed not only by these releases but also Materialists (featuring Pedro Pascal, Chris Evans and Dakota Johnson) which made just $9 million over the weekend. Even Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning made just $12 million over this weekend. But both of these films are older releases. By this weekend, Mission: Impossible 8 had made over $500 million. However, Alfie Williams at least overshadowed one big star in a straight clash. Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan's Sitaare Zameen Par was also released this week and did just about $12 million over the weekend.

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Danny Boyle's third chapter of the undead trilogy, 28 Years Later was shot on a small $50 million budget. The film, with its world wide gross already past $60 million has recouped its budget in only three days. 28 Years Later is a sequel to 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later and also the first part of a planned trilogy. The next part, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple brings back Alfie Williams and Cillian Murphy from 28 Days Later. This scheduled release is 2026.

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