Unlikely Monster Movie Decimates Chalamet's $626M Dune 2 at the Box Office
The mighty sandworms of Arrakis have nothing on Godzilla and Kong’s iconic duo.
Summary:
- Adam Wingard’s Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire raked up a whopping $194M on its opening weekend.
- For comparison, Denis Villeneuve’s recent Dune: Part II only managed to open with $182.5M worldwide.
- While critics scold the new Godzilla x Kong, fans love it: the movie currently has a fantastic 92% Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Timothée Chalamet’s Lisan al Gaib was spectacular. Dune 2 was Denis Villeneuve’s grandest masterpiece. Were we expecting it to become the biggest movie of 2024? Not exactly, but definitely somewhere up there.
What we were not expecting was another iteration of the classic Big Monster vs. Big Monster movie to take over Dune: Part II at the box office so effortlessly and quickly.
And yet, that happened over this weekend.
Godzilla x Kong Killing It at the Box Office
Adam Wingard’s Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire only hit the theaters on March 29, 2024 — and already, it took off magnificently. The MonsterVerse’s latest addition killed it at its opening weekend, lazily raking up a staggering $194M worldwide; for context, The New Empire cost $200M to produce, meaning it’s already halfway there in terms of breaking even after just three days in theaters.
To put things into perspective, the much-anticipated Dune: Part II earned less in its opening weekend. Denis Villeneuve and Timothée Chalamet’s latest Arrakis outing brought in $182.5M from its first weekend. The gap between the two movies’ opening earnings is twice Chalamet and Zendaya ’s Dune 2 salaries combined.
Godzilla x Kong Pits Fans x Critics… Again
It’s almost a running gag by now just how rarely do critics’ and viewers’ opinions on a movie or a TV show align. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire supported the trend: there’s a wide gap between the two points of view. On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie’s Top Critic Score sits at an embarrassing 30% whereas its Audience Score is a confident and, honestly, overwhelming 92%.
You don’t typically expect the “we pitted two gigantic monsters against each other so you could watch them fight for an hour” genre to perform so well neither review-wise nor commercially. The secret of the latest Godzilla x Kong’s success is simple: this movie is more than that. Fans largely praise Adam Wingard for delivering a well-crafted plot and endearing characters as much as for the nerve-wracking action.