Box office: ‘Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire’ lands massive $194 million global Easter opening

Edward Douglas
·6 min read
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Easter continues its tradition as a great holiday weekend for a big studio movie release, proven by the sequel “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” which far exceeded all expectations. Read on for the weekend box office report.

Almost three years after Warner Bros. released director Adam Wingard‘s “Godzilla vs. Kong” at the height of the pandemic with a simultaneous HBO Max streaming release, the franchise was able to return to traditional theatrical by releasing “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” into 3,861 theaters on Friday. Starring Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry and Kaylee Hottle from the previous movie, joined by Dan Stevens, Wingard’s sequel received mixed-to-negative reviews, but after making $10 million in Thursday previews “Godzilla x Kong” brought in $37 million on Good Friday, which is just slightly less than the $38.4 million opening day for “Godzilla” back in 2014.

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Business kept up through the weekend for $80 million estimated from Warner Bros., the second-biggest opening for 2024, and also more than twice the $32.2 million opening for “Godzilla vs. Kong” in 2021. It’s also more than the $61 million opening for “Kong: Skull Island” in March 2017, making it the biggest opening for Legendary’s Titans franchise since then, and the biggest opening for any King Kong movie ever.  (As a side note, the 2014 “Godzilla” opened with $93.2 million on its way to $200.7 million domestic.)

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“Godzilla x Kong” received an “A-” CinemaScore, which is the second-best in the franchise after 2021’s “Godzilla vs. Kong,” which received an “A.” We’ll have to see how “Godzilla x Kong” holds up over the slower month of April.

“Godzilla x Kong” also opened in 62 international markets this past week, where it grossed $114 million through Sunday including $44.4 million just in China, which is lower than “Godzilla vs. Kong’s” $69.9 million opening weekend in 2021, though that’s the biggest opening for a Hollywood movie in the Middle Kingdom this year. $20.5 million of the movie’s $194 million global opening came from IMAX screens, with $8.8 million domestic and $7.5 million of that amount from China.

“Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” took a heavy fall to second place with $15.7 million, down 65% from its opening weekend, bringing its North American total to $73.4 million, not helped by the release of a bigger franchise sequel. Overseas, “Frozen Empire” added another $11.2 million from 27 markets, for a global total of $108.5 million.

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Denis Villeneuve‘s sci-fi epic “Dune: Part Two” continues to fight it out with DreamWorks Animation’s “Kung Fu Panda 4” for placement, but based on estimates, it managed to take third place with $11.1 million, down 37% from last weekend, while the animated sequel was helped by school being out on Good Friday to take $10.2 million for fourth place, down 38% from last weekend.

“Dune” crossed the $250 million mark domestically this weekend; it continues to be the highest grossing movie domestically since the “Barbenheimer” phenom last summer. On top of that, “Dune: Part Two” has crossed the $600 million mark globally, with another $18.4 million grossed internationally this weekend for a $626.1 million global total. IMAX reports that $134 million of that amount has come from IMAX screens.

By comparison, “Kung Fu Panda 4”  has grossed $151.7 million domestically after four weeks, with another $43.6 million grossed overseas this weekend for a global total of $347.3 million.

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Christopher Nolan‘s Best Picture-winning “Oppenheimer” finally opened in Japan this past weekend with $2.57 million, achieving the biggest IMAX opening in Japan for one of Nolan’s films.

Back in North America, Sydney Sweeney‘s gory horror-fest “Immaculate” took fifth place with $3.3 million, down just 39% from its opening weekend, so potentially taking advantage of the Easter weekend for the film’s faith elements?

Two new films from India shook up the top 10 with the Telugu-language comedy “Tillu Square” taking sixth place with $2.5 million in 450 theaters, and the crime dramedy “Crew” opening in ninth place with $1.7 million in 486 theaters.

Mark Wahlberg‘s “Arthur the King” took seventh place with $2.4 million (down 44%). It has grossed $19.1 million domestically since opening earlier in the month.

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Last week’s other horror hit, “Late Night with the Devil,” starring David Dastmalchian, dropped to eighth place with $2.2 million, down just 23% as it added another 408 theaters on Friday. The IFC Films release has grossed $6.2 million over its first two weekends.

The Lionsgate horror film “Imaginary” took 10th place with $1.4 million, down 49% to bring its North American total to $26.2 million.

Liam Neeson returned to the Irish isles for the thriller “In the Land of Sinners and Saints,” co-starring Oscar nominee Kerry Condon (“The Banshees of Inisherin”), Ciarán Hinds, and Colm Meany. Directed by Oscar-nominated producer Robert Lorenz (“American Sniper”), the movie debuted at the Venice Film Festival last September and reviews were relatively decent, but it seemed to be thrown into 896 theaters by Samuel Goldwyn Pictures with very little fanfare. It managed to bring in just $1.1 million in its opening weekend, roughly $1,179 per location, which wasn’t enough to get it into the top 10.

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Most players had “Godzilla x Kong” winning the weekend with between $50 and $75 million in Gold Derby’s box office prediction game, but based on the above estimates, perfect scores are more likely for some portion of the 13 players that had the monster movie grossing over $75 million this past weekend. Note that Easter Sunday tends to be a quieter day in movie theaters, so this week’s studio estimates may be lower or higher than the actuals reported on Monday.

Eleven players went six-for-six in the March 22 game, but “PickMe” and “Robert Chardello” played their Super Bets just right to score the most points.

The first weekend in April sees the release of two genre films, the horror prequel “The First Omen” and Dev Patel‘s action flick “Monkey Man,” so check back on Wednesday for the weekend preview on how those movies might do against “Godzilla x Kong.”

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