While the pandemic is far from over, many are vaccinated and the world is doing its best to keep moving. Theaters took a heavy blow over the past year, leaving many to call the model a dinosaur and prematurely pronouncing the theatrical experience “dead”. Even though the past year has shined a light on some of the glaring issues with the model, that’s a ridiculous notion. As we attempt to push forward, cinemas desperately needed a film to stand out and bring people back into their theaters.
Warner Bros. and Legendary’s Godzilla vs. Kong (read our review) would answer the call.
Directed by horror veteran Adam Wingard (V/H/S, You’re Next, The Guest), Godzilla vs. Kong is the box office champion once again, nearing $400 million globally even after premiering day-and-date with HBO Max subscribers. The “final” film in the Monsterverse saga pulled in another $7.7M domestic for a $80.5M total. Internationally, it added another $12M for a $309M total. Globally, it sits at $390M.
These numbers are meaningful because not only is Godzilla vs. Kong now the highest-grossing worldwide release of the past year, it has also surpassed the $387 million worldwide take of Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
Here’s what is different and incredibly important: While Warner Bros. is part of the HBO Max family, the streaming service still paid for the rights to add Godzilla vs. Kong to their service. It was reportedly in the $200M-$250M range, without a theatrical split. Doing simple, vague math, Godzilla vs. Kong is well into profit territory, which really changes the way we look at box office numbers. The truth is, none of us really know the true figures and all we can do is speculate. What we do know is that Godzilla vs. Kong is a hit and it should call for further sequels, assuming the studio carries (or can get) the continuation of the rights.
In other quick box office news, Warner Bros. Pictures’ other day-and-date genre film, Mortal Kombat, already opened overseas to $19M. It’ll hit U.S. theaters this weekend at the same time as HBO Max, which likely already paid a hefty chunk of change for the streaming rights.
The Sam Raimi-produced The Unholy (review) is currently sitting at $10M+ globally, while Universal Pictures’ action-thriller Nobody (review) is about to topple $35M worldwide. Lastly, Neon’s specialty horror In the Earth (review) took in $506k in only 547 theaters. Not too shabby!
Can Mortal Kombat perform a fatality on the domestic box office this coming weekend? It seems likely…
