Friday Box Office: 'Godzilla x Kong' Plunges 77% But Still Towers Over 'Monkey Man' and 'First Omen'

The dangers of mistaking online excitement for general audience interest and thinking all IP is good IP are front and center amid a disappointing early April weekend

In pre-COVID times, when theatrical was not seen as consistently hanging by a thread, I was unconcerned about the cumulative box office. If the individual movies earned whatever they needed to earn in terms of budget, expectations, and related variables, then everything was fine. After all, if we wanted more variety than just one mega-bucks tentpole after another every week, we had to understand that some weekends or months would be lower than a given weekend or month in a previous year.  

That’s especially true when you have a lightning-in-a-bottle blowout like Passion of the Christ, which earned $370 million in February/March 2004. Spoiler: nothing in February/March 2005 measured up. After a robust March 2024, where tentpoles like Dune Part Two and indies like Late Night with the Devil overperformed, April was always going to be a year-to-year comedown because The Super Mario Bros Movie earned $575 million domestically last April. But would the handful of smaller flicks perform according to their respective expectations? Uh...