‘Godzilla x Kong’ stomps expectations with a titanic $80M weekend

Hello! Welcome to The Box Office Report for the weekend of March 29-31, 2024.

1. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

Weekend gross: $80M
Total domestic gross: $80M
Last weekend: New release
Percent drop: NA

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire blew away expectations this weekend, opening with a massive $80 million. The film had been predicted to debut in the $50 million-$55 million range as recently as Wednesday. The latest film in the MonsterVerse instead scored the second highest opening weekend in 2024, behind only Dune: Part Two’s $82.5 million debut a month ago.

Godzilla x Kong’s $80 million opening weekend (which can always inch higher once the actual numbers are in on Monday), is the second biggest debut for a MonsterVerse movie, behind only the $93.2 million that Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla opened with in 2014. The latest installment in the MonsterVerse should pass both Godzilla: King of the Monsters ($110.5 million) and Godzilla vs. Kong ($100.9 million) to take the No. 2 spot on the franchise’s domestic chart. (Godzilla vs. Kong opened during the pandemic and was released simultaneously on HBO Max, which makes its box office numbers, like the original Dune, a bit harder to compare to its successor.)

When it comes to King Kong movies, Godzilla x Kong easily scored the best opening weekend for any film in that series, with the previous highs being Kong: Skull Island’s $61 million in 2017 and Peter Jackson’s King Kong’s $50.1 million in 2005.

2. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

Weekend gross: $15.7M
Total domestic gross: $73.4M
Last weekend: 1st
Percent drop: 65

After an opening weekend of $45 million that had Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire tracking right in line with Ghostbusters: Answer the Call ($46 million) and Ghostbusters: Afterlife ($44 million), the latest Ghostbusters movie suffered a 65 percent fall this past weekend, dropping it behind its two predecessors. (Through two weekends, Answer the Call stood at $86.3 million and Afterlife stood at $87.5 million.)

I haven’t heard good things about Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, so I’m not surprised that the film saw this big of a box office tumble this weekend. It is a bit surprising, though, to see Frozen Empire (and even Afterlife) do at best the same as Answer the Call despite pumping the film full of original cast members and nostalgia bait. I’m starting to suspect that the complaints about Answer the Call weren’t really about the story itself ...