by Conan Simmons – April 6, 2021 – 8:30 pm
As expected the battle of the dynamic, titanic duo beat box office expectations to a pulp over the weekend. Pulverizing many analysts’ expectations of a debut in the mid-to-high $20 million range and absolutely demolishing any trepid estimates of more pessimistic analysts. The special effects tentpole film debuted to a whopping $48.5 million after releasing on Wednesday, day-and-date on HBO Max. The film took in approximately $16 million on the first two days adding another $32 million from Friday through Sunday. Numbers from the streaming service, as always, are being touted as the best ever by the streaming service itself, which may well be, but without third party verification it can’t be considered anything more than marketing hype.
The box office smash is a loose remake of Ishirō Honda’s 1962 film ‘King Kong vs. Godzilla’ which marked the first King Kong film from Toho Studios and the first time Godzilla appeared in color. It was the fourth time Godzilla appeared on film after his debut in 1954’s ‘Gojira’ followed by the American version ‘Godzilla, King of the Monsters’, which is vastly different from the original Japanese version, and ‘Gojira, the Fire Monster’ a.k.a. ‘Godzilla Raids Again’. As Godzilla would go on to worldwide fame fighting other Kaiju, or giant monsters, King Kong went on to appear in a 1966 sequel from Toho, ‘King Kong Escapes’ in which he fought a Mecha-Kong, several years before Godzilla took on MechaGodzilla in the early 1970’s.
‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ stars Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown and Demián Bichir.
Also debuting over the weekend was the Sam Raimi produced supernatural horror film, ‘The Unholy’ starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Jordana Brewster. Taking in $3.2 million it is a miniscule second compared to the monstrous first place.
Holdovers ‘Nobody’, ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ and ‘Tom and Jerry’ round out the Weekend Box Office Top 5. ‘Nobody’ dropped the expected 55% for its sophomore weekend while the two animated hits, combined with the animated stars of ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ continues to prove that animation is the most popular genre in America lately.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE TOP 5 (April 2-4, 2021)
- ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ – $48.5 million – fantasy (debut)
- ‘The Unholy’ – $3.2 million – horror (debut)
- ‘Nobody’ – $3 million – action (drop $3.7 million, 55% decline)
- ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ – $2 million – animated (drop $1.5 million, 43% decline)
- ‘Tom and Jerry’ – $1.4 million – animated (drop $1.1 million, 44% decline)
The total for the weekend comes to $58.1 million. This marks and increase of $43.2 million, or a titanic 289% gain, over last weekends total of $14.9 million.
With the global haul of ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ combining for a total of $285.8 million it is the third largest opening weekend for a film worldwide in 2021 following behind two China produced comedies, ‘Detective Chinatown 3’ which took in $686.3 million and the time travel comedy ‘Hi, Mom’ which garnered $821.4 million for the world’s biggest debut.
Warner Bros. and HBO Max have quietly shifted the release date of ‘Mortal Kombat’ back a week. The film will now release day-and-date on April 23. This coming weekend will see the release of the science fiction film ‘Voyagers’, which aims to please the YA audiences but is not expected to topple the gargantuan ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ for the top spot.