by Conan Simmons – April 13, 2021 – 4:05 am
The weekend box office cooled down some after Easter weekend brought the titanic titans of Godzilla and King Kong together for a city stomping showdown. ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ took a whopping 72% drop over the weekend but still managed to gross over $350 million worldwide to put the film in the black. While it may not be the biggest of profits for a tentpole film it is a profit nonetheless making it the biggest hit of the pandemic era based solely on dollars. Let’s see if the two giant kaiju get winded and drop out of the top five before matching the 17 week run of ‘The Croods: A New Age’.
The comedic action film starring Bob Odenkirk, ‘Nobody’ nabbed second place while still dropping 13%.
The Sam Raimi produced horror film, ‘The Unholy’, starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan dropped a reasonable 25% in its sophomore weekend.
Animated hit ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ is the only film in the Weekend Top 5 to gain, with an increase of 10%.
The young adult science fiction film ‘Voyagers’ had a disappointing debut taking in only $1.3 million. We here at On Genre expected it to debut closer to $2.5 million, but maybe younger audiences aren’t going to the theaters as much anymore. If so, it could mean a change of the types of films Hollywood makes for the big screens. But let’s not get our hopes up yet.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE TOP 5 (April 9-11, 2021)
- ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ – $13.8 million – fantasy (drop $34.7 million, 72% decline)
- ‘Nobody’ – $2.6 million – action (drop $400k, 13% decline)
- ‘The Unholy’ – $2.4 million – horror (drop $800k, 25% decline)
- ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ – $2.2 million – animated (gain $200k, 10% increase)
- ‘Voyagers’ – $1.3 million – sci-fi (debut)
The total for the Weekend Box Office Top 5 comes to $22. 3 million, a drop of $35.8 million from last weekend’s total of $58.1 million, making a decline of 62%.
‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ is expected to repeat again in the top spot next weekend as no other major film is to be released until ‘Mortal Kombat’ bows on April 23. Both films hail from Warner Bros. and are day-and-date releases on HBO Max.
Film fans may be looking forward to the 10th Anniversary Re-release of ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. The World’, which will enjoy a limited release on April 30. The cult film favorite comic book movie is directed by Edgar Wright and features a cast including Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Chris Evans, Aubrey Plaza, Jason Schwartzman, Ellen Wong, Brandon Routh, Anna Kendrick, Kieran Culkin and Brie Larson.
Horror film fans may also be anticipating the reboot of the ‘Saw’ films when Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson star in ‘Spiral’ opening May 14.