by Benjamin Haines » Sat Jun 15, 2019 5:33 pm
I didn't watch that video but yes, Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a box office flop in regard to budget, expectations and staying power. I'm no happier about it than any other fan who wants the Godzilla franchise to thrive but it is what it is.
This is a $170m-budgeted, Hollywood-produced Godzilla sequel that hasn't even matched its predecessor's $93m domestic opening weekend after two weeks of play, with just $85.5m in North America through Thursday. G'14 had topped $162m domestic after two weeks while Kong: Skull Island was at $119m.
Audience interest in G'14 was heavily frontloaded (its domestic total was only 2.15x its opening weekend) while K:SI held up solidly (2.75x). G:KotM's -67.7% second weekend drop was even steeper than G'14's -66.8% and a far cry from K:SI's more normal -54.4%.
North American theaters are typically required to keep playing a new release for two weeks before they're able to stop showing it at their discretion. G'14 opened in 3,952 theaters and lost 451 of them in weekend three, while K:SI started in 3,846 theaters and lost only 180 in its third weekend. As of yesterday, G:KotM went from 4,108 theaters down to 3,207. That's a loss of 901 venues, almost double what G'14 lost, and it has G:KotM playing in fewer locations as of its third weekend than any prior Monsterverse entry even though it opened in the most theaters.
Despite that, there is a sign that the movie's domestic declines might be stabilizing. Its estimated $2,165,000 third Friday is a -48.3% drop from its second Friday, in the same ballpark as K:SI (-49.4%) and much better than the drop from Friday two to Friday three for G'14 (-62%). If it continues to hold up closer to K:SI this weekend, it should be able to bring in more than $8m in its third weekend. Still, that's a small consolation at this point because we're talking about a Hollywood Godzilla tentpole which cost $170m that will be lucky to gross $8m domestic in just its third weekend. Even if its declines are stabilizing, it already opened too low and fell too quickly to have any shot at a face-saving domestic total, as even K:SI legs from this point forward would have G:KotM finishing with less than $120m domestic, a benchmark which G'14 topped on its second Friday and K:SI topped on its third Friday.
G:KotM's international box office performance isn't any less disappointing. China and Japan are the only two countries where it topped G'14's opening weekend. It's playing like K:SI in China, which opened to $71.6m and dropped -67.1% for $23.5m in weekend two. G:KotM opened to $69.8m and dropped -66.3% to a $23.5m second weekend. Maybe it can match K:SI's $168m Chinese total but it seems to be dropping faster this weekend so a total around $135m seems more likely.
Japan is the biggest success story for G:KotM, where it opened 33% higher than G'14 and actually 8% higher than Shin Godzilla. However, while G'14 dropped -33% in its second weekend and Shin Godzilla only dropped a remarkable -13.2%, G:KotM dropped -45% in weekend two. It's on track to finish just above G'14's $29.9m total in Japan, which is fine. Despite reports that Japanese audiences like G:KotM more than prior American Godzilla adaptations, it's certainly not catching fire like Shin Godzilla, which finished north of $79m.
Even a solid $160m combined from Japan and China won't be enough to turn G:KotM into a hit. It's going to crawl past $400m worldwide and it won't get much higher than that. Movies typically need to pull in 2.5x their production budgets worldwide to break even, and in the case of movies like K:SI and G:KotM for which China makes up a heftier portion of their international totals, that multiplier needs to be about 2.7x the budget. K:SI reportedly needed to top $500m worldwide to break even on its $185m budget so G:KotM probably needs around $460m worldwide at a cost of $170m. It's not going to hit that mark.
This doesn't mean that the Godzilla franchise or even this particular Monsterverse series are doomed. We're talking about a Hollywood Godzilla movie featuring Mothra, Rodan and King Ghidorah that's on pace to sell more than $400m in worldwide admissions. Considering what a known quantity Godzilla is and how long Godzilla movies have been around, that level of audience interest in a Hollywood Godzilla production in 2019 is nothing to dismiss. However, that level of audience interest is clearly not widespread enough or growing enough for a potential post-2020 Godzilla sequel to justify another Hollywood tentpole-level budget, because this very expensive Godzilla film is a box office disappointment.