As expected, Legendary’s latest film in its Monsterverse, “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” trampled the weekend box office competition. Unfortunately, for the studio, the skyscraper-sized lizard didn’t have quite the roar as was expected.
In its opening weekend at the box office, ‘King of the Monsters’ earned an estimated $49 million domestically, which earned the film the top spot (narrowly beating last weekend’s champ – “Aladdin,” which earned $44.5 million in its second weekend). However, the #1 debut is misleading, as the film underperformed and points to a decline in popularity that should be a bit worrisome for Legendary, who is expecting big things from the franchise, especially considering next year’s “Godzilla vs. Kong.”
After a Thursday night gross of $6.3 million, the second ‘Godzilla’ film in this new reboot universe was poised to have a massive blockbuster opening, as the previous film in the Monsterverse, “Kong: Skull Island,” had a Thursday night gross of only $3.7 million. But that didn’t pan out, as the $49 million that ‘King of the Monsters’ earned falls well short of ‘Skull Island’ and its $61 million opening. Making matters worse, the previous ‘Godzilla’ film, the 2014 reboot that launched this new franchise iteration, debuted with $9.3 million on its Thursday preview night and an impressive $93 million in its opening weekend.
All this to say, it appears that the general public’s interest in the Monsterverse, and ‘Godzilla,’ specifically, is waning. ‘King of the Monsters’ is only the third film in the new cinematic universe and the debut is roughly half of the first film, even after a massive marketing campaign and an all-star cast including “Stranger Things” superstar Millie Bobby Brown. Of course, reviews didn’t help this latest film, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of only 40%. But according to CinemaScore, fans seemed to enjoy the newest film, as it earned a respectable ‘B+.’
International numbers aren’t much better, with ‘King of the Monsters’ winning the global weekend, but underperforming in most countries, even in Asia, which should be a slam dunk. Overall, the international estimates put ‘Godzilla 2’ at only $130 million for its first frame, which is below estimates coming into the weekend.
Long story short, the general takeaway from all of this is clear — the diehard fans of the franchise came out and front-loaded the weekend, with a strong Thursday night and Friday, but ‘Godzilla 2’ just didn’t do enough to earn the interest of the general public that might not be as excited for Titan fights as the faithful are. We’ll just have to see how the new film holds up against the competition of the summer and if there’s hope that Legendary can rebound with next year’s highly-anticipated “Godzilla vs. Kong.”
With giant monsters fighting each other to the death, other studios decided that perhaps some good ol’ counterprogramming could be what movie fans were wanting. And luckily for Blumhouse’s “Ma” and the Elton John biopic ‘Rocketman,” that was a smart bet.
Sure, “Rocketman” didn’t have a huge $51 million opening that last year’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” earned, but with a debut of $22.9 million, the Dexter Fletcher film found its audience and should make Paramount pleased. It’s almost unfair to compare ‘Rhapsody’ with “Rocketman,” as the former enjoyed a fall release with less competition and had a PG-13 rating. “Rocketman,” on the other hand, has debuted in the summer movie season, putting it in direct competition with superhero blockbusters, Disney remakes, and the aforementioned ‘Godzilla.’ Not to mention the fact that the film is firmly in the R-rated realm, a barrier that keeps many from even attempting to watch the musical biopic.
That being said, “Rocketman” does have the edge on ‘Rhapsody’ with reviews, as the Elton John biopic currently has a 90% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and fans loved the film, giving it an ‘A-’ CinemaScore. So, it’s likely the musical drama will stick around in the weeks to come.
READ MORE: ‘Ma’: Tate Taylor Delivers A Gnarly, Dumb Horror With Octavia Spencer [Review]
Even with ‘Godzilla 2’s’ king-sized debut and “Rocketman” finishing at #3, the best performance of the weekend is clearly the Blumhouse horror film “Ma.” Starring Octavia Spencer and directed by Tate Taylor, “Ma” has a ton of talent involved, and the film was able to earn an estimated $18.2 million in its opening frame. With a reported budget of only $5 million, the debut is great for everyone involved and is yet another feather in the cap of Jason Blum and his production company.
Speaking of films with smaller budgets, the holdovers from last weekend, “Brightburn” and “Booksmart,” saw very different second weekends. The James Gunn-produced horror film, “Brightburn,” which features an evil take on the Superman origin story, dropped a startling -69% from its already-small debut for a weekend of only $2.4 million. Now, after only 10 days, the film has a domestic cume of $14.3 million. Far from the breakout hit that many were expecting the film to become.
On the other hand, after a week of discussion about why the film “failed” at the box office, “Booksmart” had a strong hold, dropping only -47% and earned $3.7 million. Still not the general audience comedy hit that Annapurna positioned it as, with its huge 2,500 theater debut, “Booksmart” has earned $14.7 million after 10 days.
And though both “Brightburn” and “Booksmart” have very similar domestic totals right now, the trend points to the latter having more staying power at the box office than the horror film.
Next weekend, the box office crowds even more with the superhero film “Dark Phoenix” and the animated sequel “The Secret Life of Pets 2.”
Here’s the entire domestic top 10 for May 31 to June 2:
1. Godzilla: King of the Monsters – $49M (Debut)
2. Aladdin – $44.5M ($187.2M Overall)
3. Rocketman – $22.9M (Debut)
4. Ma – $18.2M (Debut)
5. John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum – $10.5M ($121.5M)
6. Avengers: Endgame – $8.5M ($815M)
7. Detective Pikachu – $6.7M ($130.7M)
8. Booksmart – $3.7M ($14.7M)
9. Brightburn – $2.4M ($14.3M)
10. The Hustle – $1.3M ($33.2M)
