Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) - Part 1

[TheFuture]

Godzilla [2014] is the BvS of the MonsterVerse. Justice League bombed due to the toxic WoM of BvS (the former as a movie was no great shakes either but the OW pretty much solidified that BvS did irreparable damage) and KOTM is similarly paying for the sins of it's predecessor.

G:KOTM is under-performing or just flat out flopping everywhere (except Japan). Even 400m WW isn't a safe bet atm. The movie is DOA.

What's your source for the alleged underperforming because I can't find anything myself.

 

[godisawesome]

The desire to make human drama the core of these monster movies is always going to be a kind of damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t thing: *if* you can do it competently, it’s a solid way to make your film special compared to other monster films, but at the same time, the very premise of a monster movie is the spectacle of the monster and their destructive rampage, and it’s easy to screw up human drama when trying to frame it around monster spectacle.

Having said that, since I watch Godzilla movies because to see the monster spectacle, this film was everything I could want and more there. To me, thanks the A Plot and the only real reason to be here, and as far as that goes, it’s fanatstic. Ghidorah, Rodan, and Mothra are all fantastic, and Godzilla gets enough focus to show his personality come through even more, and it’s a great “John McClane” style personality.

And the human drama, while eye-rolling, is better than it was in G14, since they don’t kill off the only interesting character at the 20 minute mark then try and have an intentionally dull and mostly featureless character take over. Serizawa has a bigger role and is still pretty cool, and MBB manages to keep me caring about her character enough to not get bored. As far as the three films thus released go, I’d say this has the second best human story- Kong: Skull Island was genius to have Sam Jackson as an Ahab character and the WWII veteran, and get first place, while again, I have no desire to rewatch any human parts from G14 since they killed off their best part.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

What's your source for the alleged underperforming because I can't find anything myself.

Keep in mind that K:SI did 3.7m in previews while KOTM did 6.3m.

KOTM is going under 50m (probably hitting 48m for the weekend) which would be a terrible result.

Godzilla: King Of The Monsters At $13M Overseas In 2 Days; $150M Bow Eyed – Deadline

the revised projected weekend at the international box office now looks closer to $150M than the $170M-$190M the industry saw ahead of the session.

 

[Punisher_MAX]

sooo where could I go for some Zilla avys? need to update mine lol

 

[Sithborg]

What's your source for the alleged underperforming because I can't find anything myself.

I mean, it isn't exactly doing great in Europe. But calling it DOA after the first night is a bit much. Hopefully word of mouth picks up this weekend.

 

[terry78]

Well we'll see how it does tomorrow.

 

[redhawk23]

Movie of the year. Don't understand the complaints. All the critic complaints and complaints here are complaints about things that make it a stylistically classic Godzilla movie.

Video game like? Power point? Cliche characters? Monster worship? Why would us Godzilla fans prefer a well put together drama of characters and good writing with a monster battle story that matches that tone?

This was everything a godzilla movie should be, but I guess some people have a more nuanced standard of films and enjoy based on quality, opposed to taking it for what it is.

Critics and these opinions are seemingly like the at minority. My girlfriend liked it, my best friend LOVED it and he flat out said he doesn't care for Godzilla and is only interested cause ghidorsh looks cool. My audience loved it. It got a round of applause after.

I want to go watch it again. Honest 10/10 from me.

Any time Godzilla fans say "Godzilla movies don't need good writing or filmmaking!" it is an embarrassing self-own.

 

[redhawk23]

Keep in mind that K:SI did 3.7m in previews while KOTM did 6.3m.

KOTM is going under 50m (probably hitting 48m for the weekend) which would be a terrible result.

Godzilla: King Of The Monsters At $13M Overseas In 2 Days; $150M Bow Eyed – Deadline

Preview numbers are pretty meaningless and hard to compare year to year as when they start has kind of gotten out of hand. Previews used to start at midnight prior to the Dark Knight Rises shooting, then they started shifting to earlier in the evening. For King of the Monsters my local theaters had showings starting at 4pm! These aren't even previews any more, movies just come out on Thursdays now and I think its disingenuous that the reporting on these numbers don't talk about that.

 

[jaqua99]

Any time Godzilla fans say "Godzilla movies don't need good writing or filmmaking!" it is an embarrassing self-own.

This assumption is off base

 

[The Chris]

Well, if this truly is underperforming then I'll just be grateful about getting this one, and also the fact that they already shot Godzilla vs Kong.

 

[squeekness]

As stupid as the joke was, I laughed my ass off when

Spoiler

Chen mentioned Ghidorah's name for the first time and somebody misheard it as "Gonnorhea" and she angrily yells "Ghidorah! Ghidorah!"

Hee hee, that was funny.

 

[Sithborg]

I had forgotten how much of a crush I had on Zhang Ziyi.

 

[The Big G]

Seriously. I wanted to scream out....

Spoiler

....Godzilla is going Super Saiyan!!!!

more like Super Saiyan God

 

[The Big G]

Top 5 KOTM moments for Me

Spoiler

1. Mothra "The Shobojin Send their Regards"ing Rodan
2. The Battle of Boston opening set piece with the Ifukube score
3. Rodan Chase
4. Fire Godzilla
5. Ghidorah just being an absolute dick in general.

 

[Loden Greatstorm]

Keep in mind that K:SI did 3.7m in previews while KOTM did 6.3m.

KOTM is going under 50m (probably hitting 48m for the weekend) which would be a terrible result.

Godzilla: King Of The Monsters At $13M Overseas In 2 Days; $150M Bow Eyed – Deadline

48 million is far from terrible. Sheesh.

 

[Iceman]

Preview numbers are pretty meaningless and hard to compare year to year as when they start has kind of gotten out of hand. Previews used to start at midnight prior to the Dark Knight Rises shooting, then they started shifting to earlier in the evening. For King of the Monsters my local theaters had showings starting at 4pm! These aren't even previews any more, movies just come out on Thursdays now and I think its disingenuous that the reporting on these numbers don't talk about that.

Agreed. Anything that starts a minute before counts as the previous day for me.

 

[The Big G]

 

[Shinobi Shaw]

I think the real issue with the human characters is that they want to give us the gravitas of a Cloverfield or Gojira, but also the wrestlemania with the monsters: I’m accepting the fact that you can’t do both.

Unless it’s a standalone with a message and metaphor they’re trying to convey, we’re not going to care about the humans. Cloverfield, I cared about Rob and his friends, this movie, I wanted Mothra to eat Vera Farmiga.

For this Monsterverse they really could’ve kept Project Monarch with about 4 characters all in the same movies and interchange the military personnel. We don’t care about human drama for this, we wanna see a fun slugfest.

 

[Schlosser85]

I think the real issue with the human characters is that they want to give us the gravitas of a Cloverfield or Gojira, but also the wrestlemania with the monsters: I’m accepting the fact that you can’t do both.

Unless it’s a standalone with a message and metaphor they’re trying to convey, we’re not going to care about the humans. Cloverfield, I cared about Rob and his friends, this movie, I wanted Mothra to eat Tessa Farmiga.

For this Monsterverse they really could’ve kept Project Monarch with about 4 characters all in the same movies and interchange the military personnel. We don’t care about human drama for this, we wanna see a fun slugfest.

Vera

 

[TheVileOne]

Cloverfield had gravitas?

 

[Schlosser85]

Honestly, I really prefer Edwards' movie over this one. I prefer the more serious tone, and while we don't see as much of the monsters especially Godzilla, when we do see them, they feel more imposing and Edwards did a really good job of blending the CGI monsters and the live-action people scurrying around underfoot with an almost docudrama verisimilitude that made it feel more "real".

Also the humans might have been a little boring, but I'm not sure if that's better or worse than having ones like half the people here who just exist to be corny one-liner machines.

 

[Shinobi Shaw]

Cloverfield had gravitas?

I believe it did. As someone who experienced 9/11 firsthand and the imagery the movie used, they nailed what they were conveying.

 

[Kuwolski]

What's your source for the alleged underperforming because I can't find anything myself.

Things may pick up, but Gavin isn't sold.

 

[Ozbridge]

For King of the Monsters my local theaters had showings starting at 4pm!

Yes I'm kind of annoyed that the previews shift earlier and earlier, which means it's more difficult to find relevant comparables. If it started at 8pm like Kong 2017 then at least we could extrapolate something like 20M true Friday from 6.3M preview for KOTM (Kong got 3.7M preview, 16.4 true Friday, i.e. 4.4x multiple). But previews started super early means that 6.7M preview only leads to 12.9M true Friday (not even 2x multiple).

Godzilla [2014] is the BvS of the MonsterVerse. Justice League bombed due to the toxic WoM of BvS (the former as a movie was no great shakes either but the OW pretty much solidified that BvS did irreparable damage) and KOTM is similarly paying for the sins of it's predecessor.

G:KOTM is under-performing or just flat out flopping everywhere (except Japan). Even 400m WW isn't a safe bet atm. The movie is DOA.

Saying DoA on day 1 is a bit too early but yeah, 140M domestic + 120M China + 200M other OS markets seems like best case scenario right now. With 460M WW it might break even if the production cost is 180M and not the alleged 200M+ some trade reported earlier this week. But never say never, it might rebound in domestic market like Kong (though even then 140M+ is really difficult and CS is only B+).

I know K vs G might be the last movie but as a new viewer I wish there would be a Mothra movie. Who knows she might be the Monsterverse's Wonder Woman.

 

[-JKR-]

Critics are out of their freakin' minds these days.

This was a GREAT, wonderful blockbuster. Probably the best one so far this year.

Michael Dougherty is a gem, and clearly took some notes from both Steven Spielberg and James Cameron.

But I forgot that Kevin Feige's name isn't printed on the movie poster's credits......