The Godzilla-King Kong combo stomped on expectations as ‘
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
‘ roared to an $80 million opening on 3,861 North American screens, according to Sunday studio estimates.
The monster merger from Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures starring Rebecca Hall and Brian Tyree Henry brought the second-highest opening in what has been a robust year, falling just short of the $81.5 million debut of ‘
Dune: Part 2
‘.
Projections had put the opening weekend of ‘
Godzilla x Kong
: The New Empire’, which sees the monsters teaming up instead of squaring up, at closer to $50 million.
The newer film had the second biggest opening of the studios’ broader
MonsterVerse
franchise. ‘Godzilla’ brought in $93.2 million in 2014. It was the biggest earner in the nearly 70-year cinematic history of the creature that originated and spent most of its screen life in Japan. It earned more than $200 million in North America and more than $500 million globally.
‘Godzilla x Kong’ comes just four months after the most recent Japanese rendition, the critical favourite and Oscar winner ‘Godzilla Minus One’. But there was clearly no Godzilla glut for audiences, many of whom were willing to pay extra for IMAX and other special formats.
The enormous gorilla and reptilian giant set their differences aside in the movie, teaming up to save their species and humans in the latest MonsterVerse instalment.
In second place with an estimated $15.7 million was ‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’, co-written by Jason Reitman, whose father Ivan Reitman directed the original ‘Ghostbusters’ in 1984. The film teams a new cadre of ghost catchers (Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon) with the veterans (Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson) as they take on a frightening deity trying to launch a new Ice Age. The film now has a two-week total of $73.4 million.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros.’ sci-fi epic ‘
Dune: Part Two
‘, about war and survival on an inhospitable sand-covered planet, stayed strong in its fifth week, taking in an estimated $11.1 million for the Friday-through-Sunday period, with a domestic total of 252.4 million.
In fourth, dropping one spot from last weekend, was Universal and DreamWorks Animation’s martial arts comedy ‘
Kung Fu Panda 4
‘, at $10.2 million.
‘
Immaculate
‘, a new psychological horror film from indie studio Neon and starring Sydney Sweeney, placed fifth at $3.3 million.
The summer is full of titles that are not guaranteed megahits but could break big, including
Ryan Gosling
‘s ‘The Fall Guy’ and the next instalments of ‘Planet of the Apes’, ‘Mad Max’, ‘Inside Out’ and ‘Deadpool’.