Bad Boys: Ride or Die may have easily taken the top spot at the box office, but there’s a god and a king that may have something louder to say than Mike and Marcus. Per reports, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire has officially become the highest-grossing movie in the MonsterVerse, hitting $570 million worldwide more than 10 weeks after first hitting theaters.
The previous champ of the MonsterVerse was 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, which, according to The Numbers, topped out at $561 million (although Deadline reports it at $568.6 million). The 2014 Godzilla holds at $529 million, while 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong and 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters were nowhere near the half billion dollar mark, with the latter having the franchise-low of $383 million.
Godzilla x Kong opened with $80 million domestically, which, while not hitting the mark set by 2014’s Godzilla, was enough to open at #1, a spot it held for its second week as well. Of note, it also boasted the smallest budget of the bunch so far. The movie’s domestic earnings make up around 35% of its worldwide numbers.
The news that Godzilla x Kong is the top moneymaker in the MonsterVerse comes just a few days after Grant Sputore was named as the director to the immediate follow-up, as Adam Wingard is departing the series following both The New Empire and Godzilla vs. Kong.
As it stands, the $570 worldwide haul for Godzilla x Kong makes it the second highest-grossing movie worldwide for the year, behind Dune: Part Two’s $711 million. Box office outlook has not been great for this year, so seeing any movies cross the $500 million point (with Kung Fu Panda 4 being the only other so far) does bring some good news on that front. Even still, while it might be a minor victory there and does position the MonsterVerse as a franchise to continue keeping an eye on, we won’t get our hopes up just yet for this summer…
Why do you think Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire did so well at the worldwide box office? How would you rank the MonsterVerse movies so far? Let us know below!