So why the drop-off after the huge opening weekend and even more impressive opening day?
My theory:
Firstly, I think this is part of an overall underwhelming May (
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3852&p=.htm).
The month was bookmarked by the #5 and #7 entries in two strong, but tired, franchises (Spider-Man and X-Men). No matter how popular this characters are, this many movies in a 14 year time span leads to fatigue.
Meanwhile, from a mainstream moviegoers perspective, the bright star of potential that was "Godzilla" turned out to be more traditional action-faire. Yes it was good. Yes movie-goers liked it, mostly. But it didn't live up to the promise of the trailers and deliver a truly unexpected, fresh movie-going experience. We were expecting "The Dark Knight" and got "Thor". All of the innovative ideas (Halo jump, "Not tests...they were trying to kill him", Cranston) were in the trailer, and the movie didn't offer anything new to what we'd already seen for free.
It was really a traditional superhero movie, which I don't think audiences were dying to see. I think they wanted to see death and destruction, the world coming to an end, fire and brimstone, and mankind's struggle to survive. That song and dance.
Note, that doesn't make "Godzilla" a bad movie. Just not a movie that's going to set the summer ablaze or sprint past $200 million. As one reviewer put it, this is the Godzilla movie America should've made in the 90s. Today it just lacked that added bit of uniqueness to truly be a mega-blockbuster.
What say you?