'Godzilla X Kong' Unearths Monstrous $10 Million at Thursday Box Office

Godzilla and King Kong are *again* doing their part to save movie theaters, this time not amid a global pandemic but due to Hollywood's shortsightedness.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire kicked off its domestic box office spring with a thrilling start, raking in a record-breaking $10 million in Thursday previews. This marks the highest preview gross to date for Legendary and Warner Bros. Discovery’s ongoing MonsterVerse franchise, surpassing the $9.3 million preview gross of Godzilla (amid a $93 million opening weekend in 2014), the $3.7 million earned by Kong: Skull Island (leading to a $60 million launch in 2017) and the $6.3 million for Godzilla: King of the Monsters (amid a disappointing $48 million debut in 2019).

Over the years, there has been plenty of handwringing over the extent to which these earlier and earlier Thursday preview showings should count as a separate day. I’d rather not change the rules on a dime, and even if the Thursday totals “inflate” the overall Fri-Sun opening weekend, they also make the second weekend drops look worse. I bring this up because Godzilla x Kong’s Thursday gross was bigger than the $9.6 million opening day — a Wednesday — of Godzilla Vs. Kong in late March of 2021.

The previous MonsterVerse film saved movie theaters as we know them three years ago by so aggressively overperforming that it signaled to Hollywood that it was safe to schedule big movies for summer 2021. The pre-release tracking said $20-$25 million for the Wed-Sun debut for Godzilla Vs. Kong, opening amid early COVID-19 vaccine rolls out and debuting concurrently (in North America) on Max as part of Jason Killar’s year-long “Project Popcorn.” Instead, the king and the god earned $50 million over the Wed-Sun launch on its way to a $100 million domestic and — partially thanks to $188 million in China — a $470 million global total. 

Hence my mixed feelings about the controversial “put all of WB’s 2021 movies in theaters and on Max concurrently” plan. Even if most of WB’s 2021 slate (The Little Things, Reminiscence, Matrix Resurrections, Space Jam: A New Legacy, The Suicide Squad, etc.) were commercial coin tosses or always fated to bomb at the box office, it still threatened to undercut the exclusivity of theatrical exhibition for the sake of perceived streaming strength. Nonetheless, it was the “safety net” of HBO Max (as it was called then) that allowed WB to move Godzilla vs. Kong from mid-May to late March and open it in theaters, with Tom and Jerry and Mortal Kombat in February and April respectively, that kept theaters afloat in the first place. 

There’s a case to be made that Universal’s PVOD program and WB’s Project Popcorn, both seen as multiplex-killers, were instead instrumental in preserving the theatrical industry. But back to this weekend’s MonsterVerse mash-up.Even with lesser reviews (although in my day, movies where a giant ape and a radioactive dinosaur team up to battle kaiju treachery weren’t supposed to be critical darlings), the appeal of this silly, kid-friendly, over-the-top visual spectacular almost speaks for itself. That Godzilla and (especially) King Kong are marquee characters now goes without saying. Godzilla may be the Oscar winner, but King Kong is the people’s champion.

Heading into the weekend, we didn’t know to what extent the decisive opening for Godzilla Vs. Kong was about, “Hey, I’m vaxxed. My theater just reopened, and there’s finally a big movie in theaters.” Even if that was the case, at least partially, the folks who saw and enjoyed the previous Adam Wingard-directed monster mash were clearly on board for another go-around.

Thursday-to-weekend frontloading has slightly increased over the last few years and, over time, as the practice became more mainstream. For example, Thor earned $3.5 million on Thursday (at midnight, natch) toward a $65 million weekend in 2011. In 2023, Thor: Love and Thunder earned $29 million on Thursday toward a $143 million debut weekend. This is a roundabout way of saying I’d expect a Thursday-to-weekend run closer to King of the Monsters (13.1%) than Skull Island (6%). Still, no one will complain if the $135 million budgeted Godzilla x Kong ends the weekend with $77 million. Even a more frontloaded 15-17% gives the flick a $59-$66 million opening weekend.

When your $135 million budgeted tentpole with strong "kids will show up for weekend matinees” begins its box office jaunt with $10 million in Thursday previews, even accounting for today being Good Friday with much of the country’s children out of school, well, there aren’t a lot of pessimistic scenarios in play. Three years ago, King Kong and Godzilla teamed up to save the cinema amid a pandemic. It is a bitter irony that they still have to, thanks to an ill-conceived push to streaming and a dual labor strike.

Still, into the fray they go. Godzilla and Kong understand that they can’t be consumed by their petty differences anymore, instead choosing to unite for their common interest. They know that — like fighting kaiju threats and preserving democracy via electoral participation — saving theaters from Hollywood’s shortsightedness may now be a neverending battle.