Legendary and Warner Bros‘ Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire stomped all over expectations with an $80M opening, the second best start of the year so far, $2.5M behind the $82.5M opening of Legendary’s other big pic this spring, Dune: Part Two. No one saw this coming. As we told you heading into the movie, the fifth Monsterverse titles gets the Legendary series across $2 billion in its domestic opening alone. International delivered $114M for a great $194M global start.
EntTelligence reports that GxK is expected to pull in more than 5.5M admissions this weekend, the most attended opening weekend for any movie YTD. The Adam Wingard directed movie, not including preview night, commanded 56% of all foot traffic and 89% of all premium format admissions. Imax and PLF drove 38% of the gross with 3D responsible for 19%.
This is easily the biggest opening ever for Wingard as we wonder what he’ll do next: is it Face Off or Thundercats?
Mary Parent, Vice Chairman of Worldwide Production for Legendary and producer of GxK, tells Deadline, “Adam Wingard has a wild imagination. He’s got great ideas of how to see these characters in ways that the audience wants to see them. He has a kid-like imagination that hasn’t been extinguished as an adult and he knows how to tap into that.”
How monster movie wasn’t just an Nth title in monster movies, Parent further says that the screenplay delivered “on something we hadn’t seen before — the further exploration of Hallow Earth, the Zero Gravity Battle, the introduction of Skar King and Shimo.” But also there’s large sections of the movie where the characters don’t verbalize, specifically the monsters, however, the heart of those scenes is what won audiences over in extensive screenings.
How did Warners pull this off with GxK? While the movie is playing everywhere, there was an enormous turnout of Hispanic and Latino moviegoers who repped 35% of the crowd. In addition, there was a bespoke campaign masterminded by Warner Bros Marketing Czar Josh Goldstine that excited various demos across billboards, exhibition in theater materials and trailers.
Beamed Warner Bros Domestic Distribution Boss Jeff Goldstein, “This is a huge, fun Easter movie for the whole family. A big shoutout to Legendary, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Co-Chiefs Mike De Luca and Pamela Abdy for supporting the date and Warner Bros. Worldwide Marketing President Josh Goldstine for an extraordinary campaign.”
For a fifthquel to bounce back the franchise, GxK being the second best start in the Legendary Monsterverse after Godzilla‘s $93.1M ten years ago, is pretty remarkable. Also there’s a similar boom going on here with this Legendary property ala Dune Part Two. That franchise had its first chapter’s grosses siphoned by a pandemic day-and-date HBO Max streaming debut. Despite bringing audiences back in the Easter 2021, you could say that Godzilla v Kong‘s grosses too were also impacted by a streaming day-and-date plan, and the pure theatrical of it all with GxK clearly underscores the value of the IP on the big screen, and moviegoers’ preference to see such monster mashing in no other place but a theater.
GxK for the most part played evenly throughout the day per EntTelligence with 12% attending before 1PM, 34% during the 1PM-5PM daypart, 31% between 5PM-8PM and 23% after 8PM.
1.) Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (Leg/WB) 3,861 theaters, Fri $37M Sat $26.6M Sun $16.4M 3-day $80M/Wk 1
2.) Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (Sony) 4,345 theaters, Fri $5.5M (-65%), Sat $6.3M Sun $3.87M 3-day $15.7M (-65%), Total $73.4M/Wk 2
3.) Dune: Part Two (Leg/WB) 3,136 theaters (-301), Fri $3.6M (-20%) Sat $4.7M Sun $2.8M 3-day $11.1M (-37%)/Total $252.3M/Wk 5
Fueling the sequel’s hold was the retention of Imax screens which grossed $1.65M taking the Imax domestic haul for the Denis Villeneuve movie to $62M; the eighth highest Imax domestic release ever.
4.) Kung Fu Panda 4 (Uni/DWA) 3,582 (-223) theaters, Fri $3.97M (-3%), Sat $3.9M Sun $2.35M 3-day $10.2M (-38%), Total $151.6M/Wk 4
5.) Immaculate (NEON) 2,362 (+8) theaters, Fri $1.1M (-44%) Sat $1.25M Sun $875K 3-day $3.26M (–39%)/Total $11.1M/ Wk 2
6.) Arthur the King (LG) 2,525 (-478) theaters, Fri $784K Sat $995K Sun $621K 3-day $2.4M (-43%), Total $19.06M/Wk 3
7.) Late Night With the Devil (IFC) 1442 (+408) theaters (IFC), Fri $773K Sat $862K Sun $569K 3-day $2.2M (-21%), Total $6.2M/Wk 2
“Late Night With the Devil continues show the power of quality films in the marketplace defying horror norms by only dropping 22% and adding four hundred screens due to increased demand. We are proud to say this is now IFC’s fifth highest grossing film,” says Head of AMC Films’ Group, Scott Shooman.
8.) Tillu Square (Prath) 450 theaters, Fri $1M Sat $515K Sun $355K 3-day $1.87M/Wk 1
9.) Crew (FunAsia) 486 theaters, Fri $604K Sun $530K Sun $366K 3-day $1.5M/Wk 1
10.) Imaginary (LG) 1,956 (-557) theaters Fri $506K Sat $564K Sun $330K 3-day $1.4M (-50%) Total $26.2M/Wk 4
Notables:
In the Land of Saints and Sinners (Samuel Goldwyn) 896 theaters, Fri $378K Sat $388K Sun $290K 3-day $1.056M/Wk 1
Cabrini (Angel Studios) 1,345 (-420) theaters, Fri $539K Sat $279K Sun $220,7K 3-day $1.037M (-28%), Total $18.1M/Wk 4
Aadujeevitham (Prime Media) 200 theaters, Fri $180K Sat $200K Sun $130K 3-day $510K /Total $625K Wk 1
Asphalt City (RSA) 298 theaters, Fri $54K Sat $46K Sun $30K 3-day $130,6K/Wk 1
Wicked Little Letters (SPC) 5 theaters, 3-day $87,9K/$17,5K per theater/Wk 1