The Godzillaissance is here
Months after "Minus One," the new Monsterverse movie is blowing away box-office projections.
Happy Easter. He is risen.
I’m of course referring to Godzilla, the co-star of the new movie “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.” The fifth entry in Warner Bros. and Legendary’s Monsterverse (following 2014’s “Godzilla,” 2017’s “Kong: Skull Island,” 2019’s “Godzilla: King of the Monsters,” and 2021’s “Godzilla vs. Kong”), “New Empire” is expected to make at least $80 million in the US this weekend, according to Comscore. It’s the best start for the franchise since the first installment and far ahead of most projections, which put it at less than $60 million.
I’m a huge Godzilla fan; I owned most of the original Japanese films on VHS growing up. “Godzilla Minus One” was my favorite movie last year. And even I’m shocked that “New Empire” is exceeding expectations. “King of the Monsters” failed to even cross $400 million worldwide. The COVID-era “Godzilla vs. Kong” was a slight rebound, grossing $470 million globally despite landing in the middle of the pandemic and dropping simultaneously on what was then HBO Max. But neither movie delivered the kind of performance that would instill confidence that the Monsterverse still had juice and that “New Empire” would be a hit.
I was ready to declare that the future of the Monsterverse might be TV. Apple TV+’s “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” expanded on the movies’ mythology with an entertaining decade-spanning mystery, and it received positive reviews, scoring an 89% Rotten Tomatoes critic score (the best of the Monsterverse franchise). But then again, the audience wasn’t exactly there: I looked back at Nielsen viewership data while the series was running, and it never cracked the company’s weekly streaming rankings, which I assume is disappointing considering it’s a big-budget tentpole series starrting Kurt Russell. That probably has more to do with Apple’s tiny audience than the show itself.
So that brings us back to “New Empire,” which given that context had a lot riding on it if Legendary sees a future for its Monsterverse. If the box office maintains its momentum — and it could considering the lack of competition in April — then it could reignite the series. Expect much more kaiju action in the future.
It’s clear that Godzilla is having a moment. Japan’s “Minus One” scored $112 million worldwide off of a measly budget and won the Oscar for visual effects earlier this month, a first for the Godzilla franchise. Now “New Empire” is showing its box-office bonafides (even though Kong gets more screen time, Godzilla gets top billing).
What makes Godzilla such an enduring film franchise? We’re now at over three dozen movies over seven decades with no signs of slowing down. Audiences in the US have been weary of long-running movie franchises recently, with new installments of the likes of “Fast and Furious,” “Transformers,” and even the MCU tanking. But the Monsterverse, specifically Godzilla, endures. Maybe it helps that this is only the fifth American-produced Godzilla movie and audiences haven’t lost their interest (moviegoers seemed to love it, giving it an A- grade at Cinemascore, which surveys audiences on a movie’s opening night in theaters).
But overall, I think the No. 1 reason for the longevity is likely the franchise’s ability to change constantly. When the first film burst onto the scene in 1954, Godzilla was an allegory for nuclear destruction in post-WWII Japan. Its sequels pitted him against other monsters and got sillier over the course of the 60s and 70s where they essentially became children’s movies, something “New Empire” calls back to; it has the energy of a Saturday morning cartoon for kids and a Wrestlemania event for their dads. In the 90s, the series got a bit darker; Godzilla still fought a villain-of-the-week monster, but the storylines were more rooted in science gone wrong and the repercussions of that.
The beauty of the franchise is that it can balance all of these different styles and tones. Toho, the production company behind all of the Japanese entries since the first one, is still experimenting after all these years. 2016’s “Shin Godzilla” was maybe the franchise’s riskiest film yet, making Godzilla an aquatic fish-like monster that eventually evolves into a monster closer to what we’ve become accustomed to, but still a visual design much different than past versions. And the story was a commentary on government inefficiency, focused on bureaucrats arguing over how to best handle the threat. Then last year, “Minus One” took the series back to its roots in a post-WWII setting that positions Godzilla as a terrifying manifestation of the horrors of war. But at its heart is probably the best character work and human story of the franchise.
Meanwhile, the American Monsterverse movies have shown a similar evolution; 2014’s “Godzilla” was “The God(zilla)father” compared to “New Empire,” but people’s reaction to it will differ based on the kind of Godzilla movie they prefer. If you like Godzilla as Earth’s protector who takes naps in the Roman Colosseum, then “New Empire” is for you.
It’s hard to know where the Monsterverse will go from here. The future of “Monarch,” I assume, is up in the air, and “New Empire” sort of hits a narrative wall (of whatever narrative these movies have) by the end. But I have no doubt Godzilla will be back very soon. He always finds a way.