Forum - View topicNEWS: Godzilla: King of the Monsters Earns US$49 Million in U.S.
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Eddy564
Posts: 340 |
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I thought it was a great monster flick. Yes the human drama was very derivative but that’s not why I went to see it. Of course, it would have definitely benefited from more compelling material from the non Titans though.
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EricJ2
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Interesting thing is that both Warner's marketing and the analysts had mutually hypnotized each other into believing this would literally do door-busting Endgame business on opening--And the impressive-but-not-much opening is now being written off as a "failure" in comparison, and leaving industry press analysts asking "What happened? Where does Warner go from here??"
If there's any good that can come out of that, it's that '20's "Godzilla vs. Kong" was one of the LAST few remaining "Linked multi-film Marvel-style crossover universes" in production, and we haven't had a successful non-Marvel one yet. (I'd like to say it was the last, but there's still "Hobbs & Shaw" to crush Universal's dreams of a "Fast & FuriousVerse", Sony's "Men in Black International" left over from when they thought they'd have a Ghostbusters/Jumanji-verse, and then there's all those live-action Disney remakes we thought we'd finally gotten rid of after Dumbo and before Aladdin.) If it was Warner's own fault for setting themselves up for a fall, they had it coming--But it's going to take another blindly stubborn year or two for studios to realize that as far as "Marvel-style linked multi-film universes" go for the future '20's, the audience has just said "We are Iron Man (snap!)" |
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nDroae
 Posts: 382 |
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I had my doubts about this sequel's success ever since the surprisingly large $93m domestic opening of the 2014 film. Casual audiences that weekend felt betrayed on two obvious fronts, I'm not sure which was worse. One was the early death of a popular actor's character, featured heavily in the marketing. The other was Gareth Edwards' restraint, cutting away from the monster action repeatedly until near the end. It was artful from a filmmaking POV (I liked his 2010 "Monsters," which presumably landed him the job), but for audiences expecting blockbuster action, it was poison. And the human story the film was cutting to was not great, particularly after the loss of that mentioned character. The sequel may have promised more monsters and a lot more action, but it's a hard sell for casual audiences whose main lasting impressions of the first film were misleading marketing and disappointment.
In terms of when they were first confirmed to be happening: Dumbo - 2014 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbo_(2019_film) Mulan (current project) - 2015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulan_(2020_film) The Lion King - September 2016 (not "live action" though) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_King_(2019_film) Aladdin - October 2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin_(2019_film) |
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Cardcaptor Takato
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nDroae
Posts: 382 |
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The wait is a factor, but I don't think it's the most important one. What comes to mind is the first two Abrams Star Trek films. That was likewise a big budget tentpole reboot of a nerd franchise that everyone is aware of, even if they've barely seen any of it.
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/showdowns/chart/?id=trekshowdown.htm A $75m opening, then a four year wait to a $70 sequel opening, is drastically different from Godzilla's $93m opening dropping to $49m for the sequel. |
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EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
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Godzilla v. Kong (v. Jaegers) was particularly valuable to Warner, since they'd spent the entire 00's coasting on their "Holy Trinity" of Harry Potter, LOTR and Batman-- And when they tried to zombie-resurrect all three in the '10's into new Serial Multi-Film Crossover Universes (Harry with "Fantastic Beasts", Tolkien with "The Hobbit" and Batman with "Justice League"), the results were...not as long-lived as they might have hoped.  And Blade Runner: 2049 proved that not every classic twenty-years-later 70's/80's-title "Legacy-quel" will conjure up sentimentality by bringing back a gray-haired Harrison Ford.
They're currently in Panic-Scramble mode, trying to dig up almost every single last remaining Warner Cult-Recognized House Brand, from Space Jam to A Christmas Story to The Goonies--They're currently focusing on Beetlejuice and Willy Wonka, managed to slip a few "subliminal" Wizard of Oz jokes into Godzilla, and the fact that Warner Archive fans are still buying the Hanna-Barbera disk sets has set them on a new dedication to the brand we didn't see back when they were making those goofy Cartoon Network jokes in the 00's. The early '20's are going to be a panicky time for both movie fans and studios, and we've got to help them both with their support groups. |
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Kicksville
 Posts: 1175 |
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I have both heard that this movie finally delivers and also that it is a waste of time again, so uhhhhhhh
Yeah, I'm not surprised if people stayed home after being disappointed by the first one. I'm still not sure if I'll give this a try. |
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Commander Cluck
 Posts: 123 |
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Disney arguably did the 'shared universe' thing first considering shows like House of Mouse back in 2001 and the Disney princess and Disney Channel line with its various crossovers But you're right, this isn't about a shared universe. The live-action Disney movies exists for 3 reasons, 1. Easy money from brand recognition 2. Replacing the old "outdated" 2D animated movies* 3. Fix all the "problematic" elements that were in them, since this is current year after-all. *See also Jon Favreau who keeps screaming his Lion King movie is not an 'animated movie', despite the fact it's literally nothing but CG animation. Animation has such a stigma attached to it now they need live-action movies to replace their old classics, and to obfuscate the fact people are watching an animated movie. Especially 2D ones which are seen as outdated and "ugly" to modern kids and viewers. |
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EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
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TECHNICALLY, it's because: A) Disney doesn't have a franchise brandname to turn into sequels, prequels and reboots--They have Pixar, Fox, Marvel and Lucasfilm, who all operate more or less independently (except for Lucas, which Disney tried to turn into a "Side-spinoff" franchise, and tanked with "Solo"), but they can't make a series-universe out of Mickey Mouse. And thanks to John Lasseter finally driving a stake through those cheap 90's video-quels, they're not allowed to do Cinderella sequels or prequels anymore either...At least, not animated ones, anyway. 
(This also explains why we've gotten "Saving Mr. Banks", "Mary Poppins Returns" and "Christopher Robin", LA movies not so much about Mary Poppins or Winnie the Pooh, as about adults who grew up with Mary and Pooh, and have to listen to their inner children again.) and B ) Disney needs to revive their titles every five or seven years, to keep up with the generations--They used to do that back in the 70's and 80's with the animated revivals, but those became virtually extinct after home theater, so now a theatrical revival needs to come bearing gifts: They tried Broadway shows with Beauty&Beast, they tried IMAX with B&B after Fantasia 2000, they tried 3-D with Lion King, and their attempt to do a "Cellphone-interactive play" version of Little Mermaid went over about as well as you think it did. Now they're on the Alice/Maleficent "live-action remake" train from 2010, and every time it looks like a Dumbo or an Alice Through the Looking Glass is ready to bury this strategy, some goofy audience has to go and make "Jungle Book" "Beauty/Beast" or "Aladdin" a hit again and encourage them. Just....please stop that, people. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2544 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Universal had a "shared universe" going all the way to the 30s & 40s, with their various monster movies, like Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, etc. Sure, it wasn't a perfect, 1:1 shared universe, and actors were changed around often, but the eventual crossover films, like 1943's Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man, were in (loose) continuity with the solo films that came before them. It's why Universal's Dark Universe had such potential, only for it to fail so utterly, because Universal was the studio to do it first, yet can't even get it a basic start off the ground today. |
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BadNewsBlues
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I don't think that's the intent keep in mind some of these movies being made into live action/CGI animation like Dumbo or Pete's Dragon (stealth reference:P) are more than 20-40 years old. They're essentially remaking these movies for new audiences kinda like that Great Gatsby movie with DiCaprio. Having them be in in traditional animation would be redundant especially given the unnecessary straight to DVD sequels some of these movies got.
Which is interesting given the sheer number of 2D animated TV shows. |
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nDroae
Posts: 382 |
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There was also a successful Godzilla/Kong crossover in 1962. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Kong_vs._Godzilla "Produced as part of Toho's 30th anniversary celebration, this film remains the most attended of all the Godzilla films to date."
Interestingly, "George Lucas was already developing a Han Solo movie before Disney bought Lucasfilm." https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a849876/george-lucas-solo-a-star-wars-story-han-solo-movie-disney-lucasfilm/ Also remember stuff like the Ewok movies in '84 and '85, and the young Yoda movie planned in the 2000's (which I'm having trouble finding any traces of now, but it was announced at one point). |
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Cardcaptor Takato
Posts: 4817 |
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I would add Disney already did have a shared universe in a sense with Once Upon a Time which actually lasted for several seasons. They also recently had the Disney's Descendants Disney Channel Original movies which seemed to do pretty well.
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13552 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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I actually wouldn't mind if the biggest blockbuster at the American box office this summer was from a movie that is not part of the Disney Empire. That is, I mean the movies that came out in late May the earliest. Disney's control of most of the Fox Empire means Disney will have 40+% of the domestic movie market share, far too big for any one company. I actually wouldn't mind the "Godzilla: King of the Monsters". However, the chances of that movie making $500+ million domestically is really low.
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