Box office: ‘Godzilla x Kong’ wins again as ‘Monkey Man’ bests ‘The First Omen’

Edward Douglas
·5 min read
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April began with showers, plus a tiny regional earthquake on the East Coast, but that didn’t keep anyone away from theaters, even if it was a slower weekend than much of March. Read on for the weekend box office report.

There was little surprise that Warner Bros.’ “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” would win its second weekend at #1. Despite dropping 60% from its fantastic opening weekend, it still was able to take first place with an estimated $31.7 million to bring its total to $135 million after crossing the $100 million mark in its first week. It also passed the $361 million mark globally, with another $59.3 million grossed overseas this weekend.

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The weekend offered two new wide releases in Dev Patel‘s directorial debut, the action-thriller “Monkey Man,” and 20th Century’s horror prequel “The First Omen,” the former released into 3,029 theaters vs. “The First Omen’s” 3,375 theaters. “Monkey Man” came into the weekend with much stronger reviews with 87% on Rotten Tomatoes vs. the eventual 77% on Rotten Tomatoes for “The Last Omen,” although the latter’s reviews were released on Thursday afternoon. Even so, the former came out on top in Thursday previews (starting at 5 p.m.) with $1.5 million vs. “Omen’s” $725k previews, beginning two hours later.

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Things got balanced out slightly on Friday with “Monkey Man” taking in $4.3 million vs. the $3 million Friday for “The First Omen,” and “Monkey Man” ended up in second place with $10.1 million vs. the fourth place showing for “First Omen” with $8.4 million. With Jordan Peele on board as a producer, “Monkey Man” is rolling out slowly overseas with just $2.6 million grossed in 27 territories this weekend, on par with Bob Odenkirk‘s “Nobody” a few years back.

CinemaScores for the two new movies were “B+” for “Monkey Man” and “C” for “The First Omen,” which line up with the Rotten Tomatoes audience scores for the new movies.

Breaking up the two new movies was Sony’s sequel, “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” which dropped to third place with $9 million (down 42%) to bring its North American total to $88.9 million. It’s still behind the two most recent “Ghostbusters” reboots, although it still has plenty of time to catch up.

Taking fifth place behind “First Omen” was DreamWorks Animation’s sequel “Kung Fu Panda 4” with $7.9 million (down 24%), bringing its domestic gross to $166.1 million. Its $683 million franchise total puts it ahead of “Madagascar” to make it the studio’s second highest-grossing franchise behind “Shrek.”

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Denis Villeneuve‘s critically acclaimed “Dune: Part Two” finally was bumped from the Top 5 with a sixth place showing of $7.2 million (down 37%), but its $264.9 million domestic gross is nothing to scoff at, and it added another $11.2 million overseas to bring its global total to $660.7 million.

A big surprise this weekend was Fathom Events releasing the romantic drama “Someone Like You” into 1,800 theaters on Tuesday. Starring Jake Allyn and Sara Fisher (“Degrassi: The Next Generation”), the movie made $1.7 million through Friday, and it ended up with an estimated $3 million for the weekend, enough to place in seventh.

Mark Wahlberg‘s “Arthur the King” dropped to eighth place with $1.5 million, down 38%, with a domestic total of $22.2 million after a month.

Sony Pictures Classics expanded “Wicked Little Letters,” starring Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley, into 1,002 theaters, enough to get it into the Top 10 in ninth place with $1.5 million.

Sydney Sweeney‘s “Immaculate” lost 656 theaters on Friday and dropped to 10th place with $1.4 million this weekend (down 57%, probably not helped by the release “The First Omen”), as it brought its total to $14.2 million.

A couple notable international features, both opening in four theaters, were Bertrand Bonello‘s “The Beast” and Goran Stolevski‘s “Housekeeping for Beginners” – the latter being Macedonia’s Oscar selection. The former ended up slightly ahead with $48k vs. $45k for “Housekeeping,” the latter, which will expand into more theaters this coming Friday.

Most players in the box office prediction game guessed correctly that “Godzilla x Kong” would earn a second weekend at #1, and my own bad pick, they also had “Monkey Man” in second place. Third, fourth and fifth place were all over the place, so we’ll have to see next week how many perfect scores came out of this weekend. (Only 14 players had “The First Omen” placing fourth, so that might be an indicator.)

Only three players got a perfect score in the March 29 game with “Dylan” scoring the most points by putting his Super Bet on “Godzilla x Kong” opening with more than $75 million. Congrats!

On Friday, filmmaker Alex Garland returns with the potentially controversial “Civil War,” so check back on Wednesday for our weekend preview of how that might do.

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