It’s been a year – give or take – since the pandemic forced a global economic shutdown. One of the casualties was the box office, a transformative event that forced studios to push many of their theatrical releases direct to VOD. The mass experiment was both a success and a failure, one that’s impossibly hard to measure from our end.
Part of the past year’s narrative was that the movie theater experience was officially dead, never to be resurrected. That seemed silly, even given the PVOD options within subscription services that Disney has been experimenting with, and HBO Max’s same-day releases for the rest of 2021. In the end, budget should play a huge roll in the future of theatrical film releases with studios playing it safe(r) and setting films up for success instead of failure.
Digressing, the pandemic is still looming large across the globe, but the vaccine rollout is starting to build consumer confidence. The many who are vaccinated are finding themselves returning to some form of “normal”, even making their way back into a movie theater.
While the U.S. shouldn’t see any major surges until this coming June/July, the box office is officially back, with Warner Bros. Pictures celebrating a monstrous worldwide opening for Godzilla vs. Kong, which took in $121.8 million this weekend.
The Adam Wingard-directed blockbuster isn’t even released here in the States yet, set to open in both theaters and on HBO Max this coming Wednesday.
With a reported budget of around $180 million, Godzilla vs. Kong is now projected to surpass $250 million globally, albeit it’s hard to truly submit a prediction in today’s climate. It will be interesting to see how it performed domestically in the coming week. Watch for our review soon.
In Godzilla vs. Kong…
“Legends collide as these mythic adversaries meet in a spectacular battle for the ages, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. Kong and his protectors undertake a perilous journey to find his true home, and with them is Jia, a young orphaned girl with whom he has formed a unique and powerful bond. But they unexpectedly find themselves in the path of an enraged Godzilla, cutting a swath of destruction across the globe. The epic clash between the two titans—instigated by unseen forces—is only the beginning of the mystery that lies deep within the core of the Earth.”
Godzilla vs. Kong is the fourth film in the MonsterVerse, which kicked off with Godzilla in 2014 and continued with Kong: Skull Island in 2017 and Godzilla: King of the Monsters in 2019.