In 2008, starting with Robert Downey Jr.'s "Iron Man", Marvel Studios spent 11 years to create 22 superhero blockbusters, a complete film industry system, and made this type of film into a "stacked Arhat" style.
The layout of all this is for the foreshadowing of "Avengers 4", so that when the premiere of Endgame opened, there was a phenomenon that it was difficult to find a ticket, and a ticket was even fried to more than 400 yuan.
Seeing such a huge success of Marvel Studios, Warner and Legendary Pictures followed suit, the two big studios crossed the river by feeling the stones, spent 10 years, and spent 5 movies, and finally knew how the "Monsters Movie Universe" could make a high box office.
Recently, "Godzilla vs. Kong 2", which was opened simultaneously around the world, became a major turning point in the series.
So, how did the film grossing globally, and why did it become a turning point in the monster universe?
1. North American box office.
In the 13th week of 2024, which coincides with the Easter holiday in the West, from March 29 to 31, the North American box office charts were released, and the market totaled $135 million, 34% more than the 12th week.
In the North American box office report, the top three are "Godzilla vs. Kong 2", "Ghostbusters: The Frozen City" and "Dune 2".
Last week, three new films from North American theaters broke into the list, with Indian comedies "Flight Attendant" and "Place Tilou" both performing mediocre, ranking ninth and sixth.
In terms of old films, Jia Ling's "Hot and Hot" was released in North America for four weeks, with a total box office of $1.88 million, ranking 21st, and the journey is basically over.
The fourth place was "Kung Fu Panda 4" produced by DreamWorks and distributed by Universal Pictures, which grossed $151 million in the first four weeks, the film cost $85 million to produce, and the global box office has exploded $347 million, successfully achieving profitability.
The epic sci-fi blockbuster "Dune 2" starring Sweet Tea won the third place, with a North American box office of $252 million and a global box office of $626 million, becoming the highest-grossing film since Denis Villeneuve.
Ant-Man Paul Rudd's latest sci-fi adventure, Expendables: The Frozen City, was not so lucky, and although the film finished runner-up in its second week, it fell 65% at the box office the following week, totaling only $73.4 million.
Due to the budget cost of this film of 100 million US dollars, the global box office is currently only 108 million US dollars, and what is worse is that the word of mouth has collapsed, whether it is Douban or Rotten Tomatoes, they are in a serious failing state, and it is expected to lose $40 million.
"Godzilla vs. Kong 2" debuted in the North American market, and the box office hit $80 million in three days over the weekend, winning the North American box office championship in week 13, which is five times more than the runner-up "Ghostbusters: The Frozen City".
The film has become the third highest-grossing film of the year, currently behind "Dune 2" and "Kung Fu Panda 4", which is much higher than the filmmaker's expectations, and is likely to become the highest-grossing film in the Monsters Universe.
Second, the cost and the global box office.
"Godzilla vs. Kong 2" not only got good results in North America, but also the global market has also blossomed in full swing.
The film, co-created by Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures, opened in 64 markets around the world, earned $114 million overseas, and grossed $194 million worldwide in its first three days.
China leads the way with $44 million, followed by Mexico and India with $12.8 million and $5.5 million respectively, and Japan, where "Godzilla" is copyrighted, is scheduled to be released on April 26, and it will continue to explode at that time.
According to its box office trend, the final global box office drop is expected to reach 700 million US dollars, and the producers and distributors will make a lot of money relative to the production costs.
It is reported that the budget cost of "Godzilla vs. Kong 2" is 135 million US dollars, with 75% of Legendary Pictures investing, Warner Bros. investing about 25%, and is responsible for global distribution.
In addition, "Dune 2" is also a movie cooperated by these two companies, and in about a month, Warner and Legendary Pictures exploded two works at once, which is a very rare phenomenon.
Among them, Legendary Pictures is an American film company wholly acquired by the Chinese company Wanda Group for $3.5 billion in 2016, and now the box office has exploded, directly making Wang Jianlin make money.
If it ends up with $700 million at the global box office, the film would generate more than $300 million in net revenue for both companies, excluding the $400 million cost.
3. The Phantom Universe.
As mentioned in the preface, what exactly is the monster universe they jointly developed, and what about the previous production costs and box office?
At present, five works have been developed, and the first four works are as follows:
"Godzilla" in 2014, with a budget cost of $160 million and a global box office of $524 million;
2017's "King Kong Skull Island", with a budget cost of $185 million and a global box office of $568 million;
2019's "Godzilla 2", with a budget cost of $170 million and a global box office of $387 million;
"Godzilla vs. Kong" in 2021 has a budget cost of $155 million to $200 million and a global box office of $470 million.
This series is produced at the top level, but the box office is not high, and most of the box office is in Chinese mainland, and the global box office, including North America, is in a state that is difficult to describe.
Even the loss level of "Godzilla 2" reached 80 million US dollars, and the entire Monster Universe series was stopped for a while, and the company also held an internal seminar to see if the Monster Universe still needs to continue.
Fortunately, the producers withstood the pressure, renewed the contract of Godzilla Toho, and stepped up development efforts to seek a way out of the monster movie, and finally merged their signature monsters "King Kong" and "Godzilla" in 2021.
The first "Godzilla vs. Kong" was launched, and the intact plot and special effects once again gave monster fans hope, and the "Inner World" plus two monsters can bring fans back into the theater.
By the fifth installment, Godzilla vs. Kong 2 in 2024, the budget cost was reduced to $135 million, and the global box office received $194 million in the first three days of the opening weekend.
This is clearly a huge turning point, and this time it is bound to detonate fans around the world and push the monster universe to a new peak.
Brother Brown believes that the global box office explosion of "Godzilla vs. Kong 2" is closely related to the trade-offs made by the main creator, and it is completely correct to make this relatively young age and attract female audiences.
In terms of human beings, the status of stars has been downplayed and the title has been given to monsters, and there is no need to invite famous Hollywood stars to participate, such as the male stars in "King Kong Skull Island", such as Shake Sen, Samuel L. Jackson, and Brie Larson's salaries are frighteningly high.
is to invite Brother Tom, what the audience wants to see is still monsters, so just invite ordinary second-tier stars, which can save a lot of salary.
The main investment is used in the creation of special effects for King Kong, Godzilla and other monsters, and there is no need to take any mysterious routes, just start fighting in broad daylight, and the audience can see it clearly, and there is no need to paint black and black again.
The human plot has been changed to a hippie style similar to "Guardians of the Galaxy", abandoning the heavy emotional intersection between monsters and humans, as well as the horror of monsters.
The creator deeply knows what the audience wants to see: that is the monster war, and the fight is over!
King Kong's growth has a complete line, and at the same time, Godzilla's evolution process is very "Barbie", Warner's "Barbie" exploded at the global box office last year, so take advantage of the trend and rub yourself a little, which can attract a large number of female audiences.
In this way, King Kong attracts male audiences, Godzilla is cute and petted to attract female audiences, the plot of monster fights is younger, children can fully understand it, and the entire monster universe has completely become a family carnival suitable for all ages, and the movie-going crowd will be further expanded, and the box office will continue to explode.
The turning point of "Godzilla vs. Kong 2" is to spend the least amount of money in exchange for maximizing benefits, and the box office of the monster universe can finally turn around. If it continues like this, new follow-up films of the Monster Universe will be launched one after another.
Fourth, the Rise of the Analytical Empire.
Attentive fans must have noticed that the subtitle of the film is called "Rise of Empires".
In fact, this is a pun, the rise of the empire in this, on the one hand, refers to the rise of King Kong's empire.
King Kong in the movie found the same kind and dominated the country, and will further explore in the inner world in the future, laying the foundation for the development of a sequel to "King Kong", and pressing the Infinity Gauntlet for King Kong, providing an idea for docking the "Pacific Rim" series in the future.
Also, the sandworms in "Dune 2" also belong to monsters, and they all belong to the products of Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros.
This "Godzilla vs. Kong 2" has obviously diluted Godzilla's status, and the reason for this is that Godzilla is a loaned product, and it will definitely be returned to Toho in the future, just like Marvel and Sony's "Spider-Man".
If you can't develop it together, then you have to pay it back to others, you don't have the copyright, you can't occupy it forever, and besides, every time you renew the copyright fee, you have to spend a lot of money.
The second aspect refers to the rise of the emperor's plan.
Since it is a monster universe, the Emperor Project has to be discussed, which involves the entire series of timelines, and Brother Brown will do a simple combing so that fans can fully understand it.
Around 250 million B.C., an "asteroid" crashed in Repulse Bay in northern Canada, causing the extinction of the dinosaurs, the overlord of the earth at that time. There are also some Titans that go dormant like turtles.
They hid in the depths of the earth and created the hollow earth theory, the architecture of the inner world.
Archaeological discoveries have found that some caves are carved with monsters that people have never seen in ancient times, and in the ending credits of "King Kong Skull Island", Godzilla and King Kong were found fighting.
In addition, there are monsters such as Mothra, Ghidorah, and Raton, which are all reflected in "Godzilla 2", these geocentric monsters, which specialize in feeding on nuclear energy.
In 1915, Einstein proposed the "general theory of relativity", which was also the prototype and theory of Oppenheimer's invention of the atomic bomb, which promoted the development of nuclear energy.
In 1945, during World War II, atomic bombs were first exploded in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, awakening giant titan monsters in the center of the earth, including Godzilla.
In 1946, the "Imperial Organization" was established under the two institutions of civil and military, Wen is a researcher and an archaeologist, and Wu is equipped for equipment.
The original prototype was in 1943, when the exploration ship "Lawton" was operating in the Pacific Ocean when it was attacked by an unknown creature, and the only survivor was Bill Landa from "King Kong Skull Island", who said that a huge unknown creature attacked the "Lawton".
In 1954, a large explosion occurred on Bikini Island, which was declared a "hydrogen bomb" nuclear explosion test.
In fact, because the researchers of the "Emperor Project" found Godzilla fighting with his old enemy, this is a cover-up for bombing them.
This time, Godzilla's opponent "Death Group" was directly eliminated, and Godzilla disappeared because he had no mortal enemy.
The Earth has been inhabited by monsters for nearly 20 years, and the Imperial Project is at risk of disbanding, with one of them saying that a place resembling Skull Island has been discovered in the waters of Vietnam that has never been explored by humans.
If a large monster is really found, then this imperial plan will continue to be implemented.
In 1973, the "Emperor Project" and his party landed on the island and blew up everywhere, which led to King Kong, who was a teenager, which was "King Kong Skull Island".
In "Godzilla vs. King Kong 2", I saw the Imperial University, where researchers studying monsters were everywhere, and the center also established a research institute headed by "Godzilla" on the surface and "King Kong" at the center of the earth.
Observing their every move, King Kong has now found their kind in the center of the earth, and it also indicates that the rise of the Emperor Project, in other words, the monster movie series can continue to be filmed.
Fifth, without Jing Tian, Wang Jianlin has made a lot of money.
Since Wanda's acquisition of Legendary Pictures, the road at the beginning has been really not easy, very bumpy, and very confusing, because they used an actress at that time - Jing Tian.
In order to praise Jing Tian, he made a series of unbelievable moves.
First of all, ask Zhang Yimou to shoot "The Great Wall", with an investment cost of $150 million, the actor is Hollywood first-line superstar Matt Damon, and the heroine is Jing Tian.
During the preparation and release stage of this film, it was ridiculed by a large number of fans. Sure enough, the global box office of "The Great Wall" fluttered, and Legendary Pictures lost a lot of money.
2016 was the same year that Wanda acquired Legendary Pictures.
The start is unfavorable, you must find the reason, people with a discerning eye know at a glance how can the heroine Jing Tian and De? Why is Zhang Yimou looking for a large number of superstars willing to match?
In 2017, Legendary Pictures' second monster universe movie "King Kong: Skull Island" came out, Jing Tian once again played the role of Shan, a scientific researcher of the Emperor Project, and also formed a CP with Brother Xiaohei, although the box office did not flutter, but it could only be regarded as breaking even.
In 2018, Legendary Pictures' signature sci-fi sequel "Pacific Rim: Thunder Rising" opened globally, and Jing Tian starred in this film as the second actress.
In the end, the cost of $150 million got a global box office of $290 million, and it was a loss.
Subsequently, Jing Tian and Zhang Jike fell in love, and gradually faded out of the title of the first sister of the legendary film industry, and then Hollywood resources plummeted.
Two of the three works hit the street, and one remained the same, this is Jing Tian's record in Hollywood.
For a period of time, Jing Tian's Hollywood resources have become an unsolved mystery in the entertainment industry.
Due to continuous losses, Legendary Pictures, which was acquired by Wanda, is walking on thin ice, and many major projects dare not be rashly initiated, especially after the box office failure of "Godzilla 2", the number of works has continued to decrease in recent years, and every time one is launched, you have to think twice.
Now that there is no Jing Tian's legendary pictures, two blockbuster projects have been developed - "Dune" and "Godzilla vs. Kong". Finally, the first part of the two works performed unsatisfactorily.
As a result, sequel development was put on the agenda.
In 2024, Legendary Pictures will finally win back a city, and "Dune 2" and "Godzilla vs. Kong 2" have exploded at the box office, which is the most exciting year for Wanda's acquisition of Legendary Pictures.
Wang Jianlin finally made a profit!