The Box Office History Of The MonsterVerse

If you click a link and buy a product or service from a merchant, we may be paid an affiliate commission.

Modern cinema is littered with cinematic universes that didn't work. The initial plans for the DC Extended Universe, for instance, had to be readjusted after the box office failure of Justice League while endeavors like the Dark Universe were entirely scuttled. In the middle of all these attempts to recapture that Marvel Cinematic Universe lightning in a bottle, however, is one of the rare attempts to start a new cinematic universe that's actually managed to stick around: the MonsterVerse. Kicking off with Godzilla in 2014, this franchise wasn't always meant to be an expansive multi-film narrative. But when its producers, Legendary Pictures, announced a new King Kong movie shortly after the release of 2014's Godzilla, excited fan chatter soon began to speculate about a new showdown for the iconic movie beasts after their previous clash in the 1962 Japanese film King Kong vs. Godzilla.

When Legendary made it apparent that they indeed planned to have Kong and Godzilla once again tussle, the MonsterVerse was born. So far encompassing four features, this saga has already seen a number of box office highs and lows. While that doesn't make the saga as consistently lucrative as the MCU, breaking down the box office trajectory of the MonsterVerse helps to pinpoint how this franchise has managed to soar where so many others have stumbled. 

The 1998 Godzilla was widely reviled on a number of fronts but diehard fans were especially disgruntled with the character's appearance in every regard. Clearly, there was massive room for improvement in a faithful American take on the character. When Legendary Pictures and director Gareth Edwards undertook the task of doing a new American reboot of Godzilla, hopes were high that they could improve on the previous Western version of the creature.

These hopes informed both the creative ambitions of this feature as well as the film's marketing campaign, which emphasized a more ominous and classical-looking Godzilla through evocative trailers and posters. This approach ended up hooking both Godzilla acolytes and general audiences alike, and suddenly the notion of an American Godzilla movie didn't conjure up memories of that 1998 trainwreck but of something more exciting. Box office expectations for the new Godzilla rose accordingly. A few weeks out from its release, box office tracking predicted that 2014's Godzilla would open to $60-70 million over three days — half the entire lifetime domestic gross of the 1998 Godzilla. Even coming off the negative reception to the Emmerich movie, this new edition — thanks to some good marketing and listening to the critiques of fans — was entering the marketplace with hopeful buzz surrounding its box office potential.

The candle that burns brightest burns twice as fast, as they say. So it was for Godzilla, which stumbled after a massive opening weekend. In its second weekend, the monster movie plummeted a sharp 67%, a drop Box Office Mojo attributed to both competition from X-Men: Days of Future Past and how the movie's marketing didn't quite line up with what audiences actually got when they went into the theater. With much less Bryan Cranston and monster action than the advertising promised, word-of-mouth among moviegoers was not great and the film failed to stabilize after that.

Over the following three weekends, Godzilla continued to have weekend-to-weekend drops of 45% or more, including one amounting to a whopping 61%. Though hype had greeted this new take on the massive lizard, bad buzz kept the title from sticking around for a prolonged period of time in the marketplace. As a result, Godzilla finished its North American run with $200.6 million, still a nearly 50% increase over the final domestic haul of the 1998 Godzilla movie. However, by the end of the summer, Box Office Mojo observed that this new reboot had scored the lowest domestic gross for a movie that opened to over $90 million. That feat was a testament to just how frontloaded Godzilla was, putting the MonsterVerse on shakier financial ground than the movie's massive opening weekend would have indicated.

Blockbusters are crafted in such a precise way to appease audiences that it's rare to see one become a total surprise smash. But that's just what happened with Kong: Skull Island, which far exceeded expectations. On opening weekend, the film surpassed all pre-release expectations by taking in $61 million domestically. True, that was below the opening of the 2014 Godzilla movie, but its also proved to be significantly above the bows of most other monster movies and even improved on the opening of Peter Jackson's 2005 King Kong.

Kong: Skull Island managed to break out thanks to the enduring appeal of its main ape, the presence of well-liked actors like Tom Hiddleston in its cast, plus the fact that competing tentpoles either aimed for older audiences (Logan) or families (Beauty and the Beast). Whereas Godzilla had to compete with Spider-Man and a conventional X-Men installment, Kong was the only major PG-13 blockbuster game in town for March 2017. It didn't hurt that Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures had put together a well-received marketing plan for the film that included a final memorable trailer dropping just 10 days before its release. These qualities allowed it to leap far beyond pre-release expectations and set the MonsterVerse on far more stable footing at the domestic box office.

Five years after Godzilla launched the MonsterVerse, a sequel arrived in the form of Godzilla: King of the Monsters. This title aimed to keep the box office momentum of Kong: Skull Island going by having Godzilla face off against some of his most famous foes. Rodan, King Ghidorah and Mothra were all brought into an American film for the first time. With such famous monster faces in the mix, the hype for Godzilla: King of the Monsters was extreme and that led to major pre-release expectations of the film's box office potential.

Even given these expectations, nobody expected King of the Monsters to live up to the opening weekend of the 2014 Godzilla. That film had the novelty of being the first "proper" American Godzilla movie, which no sequel could hope to match. However, it was expected that the film would produce box office results on par with Kong: Skull Island. These expectations were reflected in how, just before its release, The Wrap noted that King of the Monsters was on track to open to $55-65 million, on par with the $61 million bow of Kong. If King of the Monsters managed to keep pace with Kong, then the MonsterVerse would be in fine shape heading into the eventual Godzilla and Kong throwdown.

There were a couple of problems that held King of the Monsters back from claiming the box office crown. For one thing, the five-year gap between Godzilla movies likely didn't help much, nor did the mixed word-of-mouth of the previous MonsterVerse Godzilla film. This project also called into question just how popular Mothra and other Toho monster fixtures were among the general public. Whereas something like The Dark Knight could succeed on the presence of The Joker due to that character's popularity, leaning so hard on far more obscure Toho monsters with the marketing for King of the Monsters turned out to be a mistake.

It also didn't help that King of the Monsters lacked a major famous human actor to anchor the film. The 2014 Godzilla had Bryan Cranston, Kong: Skull Island had Samuel L. Jackson, plus his fellow Marvel star Tom Hiddleston and recent Oscar winner Brie Larson for good measure. King of the Monsters had a talented crop of character actors but none of them were major box office draws. Then there was the fact that King of the Monsters was utterly dwarfed by other May 2019 titles like Avengers: Infinity War and Aladdin. With all this baggage to carry around, it's no wonder King of the Monsters vanished in the middle of a crowded summer 2019 marketplace.

Despite having massive expectations to fulfill, Godzilla vs. Kong managed to live up to those hopes and then some with its eventual box office performance. Its worldwide theatrical run began with a fantastic international start of $123.1 million, rendering it the first American movie to open to over $100 million globally since the COVID-19 pandemic began. It also managed to score a $69.1 million opening weekend in China, surpassing the debut of King of the Monsters in that territory.

The good news got even better for Godzilla vs. Kong once it hit the domestic marketplace, where it became the first post-COVID-19 movie to play in over 3,000 domestic movie theaters. The positive news didn't end there as Godzilla vs. Kong scored an opening day of $9.6 million, the biggest single-day domestic gross since the pandemic began. From there, it procured a $32.2 million opening three-day weekend for a total five-day haul of $48.5 million. It was the first time in 13 months that a new release had opened to over $20 million in North America. Even this early into its theatrical run, Godzilla vs. Kong was widely hailed as a massive victory for the domestic theatrical film industry as well as a sign that WB's unique theatrical/HBO Max release plan wasn't doomed. What was supposed to be a monster mash culmination of the MonsterVerse turned out to be something more important for the post-COVID-19 theatrical landscape.