Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

[Kailem]

[quote="Dai"]It's times like this I'm glad I don't bother with social media anymore. The Facebook algorithm spoiled all of Shin Godzilla's forms for me back in 2016 (including the final shot of the movie), no matter how many kaiju feeds I tried to unfollow. These days I mainly just need to be careful of YouTube recommendations. I've already run into one GxK spoiler from a YouTube thumbnail.[/quote]

Likewise, from the Chinese trailer that came out a few days ago. And apparently there's an even *more* spoilery Chinese trailer or TV spot that came out today!

I found out that apparently school holidays start over here right as this is due to be released, and as a result I was thinking of holding off on seeing it until the kids had gone back, in order to limit my chances of getting a bunch of shouty children ruining my viewing. But after *then* finding out that apparently their break lasts for *two* weeks, and now with this even more spoilery footage being out there (plus some new times opening up today at the local cinema), I booked tickets for Friday.

Fingers crossed for many reasons!

[Benjamin Haines]

Yep, there's another Chinese trailer and it is preposterously spoilery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfx72YOyznM

SciFi Japan also posted the official production notes and photos from Warner Bros. and it includes a lot of plot details.

https://www.scifijapan.com/godzilla-toho/godzilla-x-kong-the-new-empire-official-production-notes-and-photos-from-warner-bros-pictures

The world premiere took place Monday night in Los Angeles. Although the review embargo doesn't lift until Thursday, critics who attended the premiere have posted their first impressions on social media and The Hollywood Reporter compiled many of them in an article. They lean positive with an emphasis on fun monster action above all else. THR also spoke with Dan Stevens and Bryan Tyree Henry on the red carpet and interviewed Adam Wingard.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/godzilla-kong-new-empire-first-reactions-premiere-1235860016/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/godzilla-x-kong-the-new-empire-stars-cgi-monsters-divas-1235860226/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/godzilla-x-kong-pays-tribute-minus-one-1235860045/

Deadline reports that the movie's production budget is a surprisingly restrained $135m.

https://deadline.com/2024/03/godzilla-x-kong-the-new-empire-box-office-1235868869/

G'14 cost $160m to produce, K:SI was $185m, G:KotM was $170m and GvsK was $165m, so if that $135m budget for GxK is true then it's both surprising and impressive. Variety did report back in 2022 that for filming in Queensland, Australia, the production would receive a total of more than $16m USD in subsidies from the Australian federal government and the Queensland state screen agency. If that's factored into the reported production budget, then Legendary & WB might have actually spent $151m to produce GxK, which would be less surprising but no less impressive that they managed to bring the total cost down to $135m in that way.

That positions GxK for success. For instance, if GxK's total global haul ends up being 80% that of GvsK, then it would make $376m worldwide and become the new lowest-grossing MonsterVerse entry worldwide, below G:KotM, and that would still be good enough because it would be 2.78x the $135m budget. It can be solidly profitable with just $400m worldwide, and the closer it gets to GvsK's $470m total will just make it that much more profitable. That bodes well for the prospect of getting another Godzilla/Kong sequel after this.

[Dai]

Argh, I ran into another spoiler, this time on Anime News Network, of all places. Is nowhere on the internet safe?! Oh well, only two days to go. I've got my ticket booked for Friday.

[Dai]

I've been avoiding the later trailers and TV spots to dodge spoilers, so I'm still wondering: has there been any confirmation of how we're supposed to say that title? Godzilla Kong? Godzilla ecks Kong? Godzilla multiplied by Kong?

[Kailem]

Everyone I've heard say it officially, from Adam Wingard to the TV spot announcers, calls it "Godzilla Kong: The New Empire." So apparently the "x" is just not even meant to be mentioned at all.

[Benjamin Haines]

According to Deadline, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire drew $8m domestic in Thursday preview showings.

https://deadline.com/2024/03/box-office-godzilla-x-kong-the-new-empire-1235871440/

For comparison, Godzilla did 9.9% of its $93.1m domestic opening weekend business on Thursday ($9.3m), while Godzilla: King of the Monsters did 13.1% of its $47.7m opening weekend on Thursday ($6.3m). Godzilla vs. Kong opened wide on a Wednesday without previews the day before so that film isn't an apt comparison.

If GxK's box office legs this weekend are like G'14, it could open as high as $80m domestic, which would be the second-best opening of the MonsterVerse. If it's as frontloaded this weekend as G:KotM or more, it could open below $60m, which would be less than Kong: Skull Island but still more than G:KotM or GvsK. We'll just have to wait and see how much of the opening weekend came from fans rushing out to see it on Thursday.


EDIT:

Deadline updated their report and, per Warner Bros. Pictures, GxK actually made $10m domestic on Thursday!

Now, it's still possible that those higher-than-estimated Thursday previews were entirely fan-driven and Godzilla x Kong is going to have the most frontloaded MonsterVerse opening weekend yet. If it did as much of its business on Thursday as G'14, that would shake out to a $100m opening weekend but let's not get our hopes up for that. If it did 13.1% of its opening weekend on Thursday, as did G:KotM, then GxK is looking at a $75m opening weekend. Don't be surprised if it ends up with the largest Thursday opening share of any MonsterVerse flick and it opens below $75m, but at this point it would be surprising if it didn't top Kong: Skull Island's $61m debut. This is great news!

[Kailem]

Oh yeah, it's doing good!

https://www.darkhorizons.com/godzilla-x-kong-already-a-box-office-king/

Deadline (via Dark Horizons) is reporting that, including the $10 million in previews, it pulled in $31 million on Friday! "Conservative" estimates are now $67 million, with that $80 million estimate you mentioned being a real possibility. Either way it's looking pretty much guaranteed to be the second best Monsterverse opening to date, and with overall positive word of mouth, it certainly bodes well for the possibility of more films after this!

And I mean.....it's gotta be aliens, right? There's no way they don't go *this* Jun Fukuda-inspired silly without the next one having aliens.

[Dai]

[quote]And I mean.....it's gotta be aliens, right? There's no way they don't go *this* Jun Fukuda-inspired silly without the next one having aliens.[/quote]

Why did I just get a mental image of Will Ferrell as the Planet X Controller?

[Kailem]

Hey if he can give a performance as good as John C. Reilly did in Skull Island I'd be down for that!

https://x.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1774469369415733716?s=20

It's official: GxK has had the biggest opening of 2024 so far with $194 million worldwide! At this point, the continuation of the Monsterverse seems all but guaranteed, and I am totally down for that!

[lhb412]

With the insane overperformance of this film and Godzilla Minus One I've decided maybe we should become recklessly overconfident.

[Dai]

If GxK does end up with an overall successful cinema run and result in more movies being greenlit, I wonder if Godzilla and Kong will be permanently joined at the hip going forward. On one hand the under-performing KotM may have spooked Legendary on the risks of a purely Godzilla-focused movie, but the massive goodwill generated by Minus One may have reversed that.

If the Monsterverse fully transitions into a GodzillaxKongTeamUpVerse, I worry about Godzilla continuing to be shortchanged in future plotlines. It's an issue with having him opposite Kong specifically, since Kong can interact with human characters directly, and GxK showed that he can be anthropomorphised enough to carry dialogue-free scenes of him interacting with others of his kind (pulling from the Planet of the Apes reboot playbook) without it feeling like the movie has jumped the shark (they save that for the zero-G scene). The next logical step would be for Jia to go full Miki Saegusa and learn to communicate with Godzilla, but that raises the question of whether Legendary are ready to let the reins of sanity go entirely and turn Godzilla into 70s-style friend-to-all-children superhero.

[Kailem]

Adam Wingard has apparently said that he considers Kong the true main star of the Monsterverse because of him being more human-like than Godzilla and more easy to convey those human emotions, which I guess is pretty obvious given that he's positioned him as the lead monster in both of his films. I'd imagine that we probably will have another Kong/Godzilla team-up in the next one (if it happens) since Godzilla fighting Kong and then Godzilla teaming up with Kong were the two big draws of these last two, but hopefully if for no other reason than to mix things up a bit he might want to focus on Godzilla primarily in the next one. I personally was ok with the amount of Godzilla we got in this one, but he absolutely played second fiddle to Kong, and if he were to go that route again for a third time I think that might just be pushing it a bit too much.

As for whether or not Legendary would be ok going full 70's Showa; I think they already have! At this point I think any semblance of the reality that G'14 introduced has well and truly gone out the window (outside of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters), so I'm sure with GxK making as much money as it is, they'll be cool with getting as nutty in another film as Wingard wants them to.

[quote="lhb412"]With the insane overperformance of this film and Godzilla Minus One I've decided maybe we should become recklessly overconfident.[/quote]

I fully agree. It's time to expand the Monsterverse in all directions! Rodan trilogy! Varan standalone! War of the Gangantuas Parts 1 and 2! Destroy All Monsters mega-crossover! Final Monsterverse Wars! With an Oscar win and now the biggest opening of the year, the King of the Monsters is back, baybeh!