Warner Brothers into North American theaters “top players”
Editor’s note: This article is from the micro-channel public number “poison eye” (ID: DomoreDumou), Author: Chen Bin, Editor: Zhang Youfa.
At the end of March, the two-year-old “Godzilla vs. King Kong” landed on the big screen, injecting a boost for cinemas across the country.
Two weeks after its release, “Godzilla vs. King Kong” broke the global box office of $285 million, setting the best record of this year’s Hollywood film. Even if subscribers to the HBO Max platform can broadcast online, audiences still flock to the theater to watch “Godzilla vs. King Kong”. The unique experience of displaying the big screen is still irreplaceable, laying the foundation for the subsequent box office recovery.
The North American and global film markets are gradually picking up, and the supply of Hollywood blockbusters will be an important part of this process.
In the first week of nearly 50 million US dollars, the monster showdown ignites North America
On March 31, “Godzilla vs. King Kong” was released in 2,409 theaters in North America, and it earned US$9.6 million on the first day, surpassing the US$7.5 million of Christmas “Wonder Woman 1984”, creating a list of movies in the past year Daily box office record.
Driven by “Godzilla vs. King Kong”, the North American market also reached US$11.26 million in a single day, up 1179.3% year-on-year, and the highest value since March 15 last year.
Entering April, with the reopening of the Regal cinema under Cineworld, the coverage of “Godzilla vs. King Kong” has expanded to 3064 theaters, which is also the first time in the past year that the number of single films has exceeded 3,000. Of course, there is still a considerable gap between this and the total number of about 5,880 theaters in North America. In addition, the attendance limit also restricts the performance of the film.
According to statistics from IMDbPro, the box office of “Godzilla vs. King Kong” is estimated to be US$32.2 million in the first weekend, driving the North American market to increase by 141% month-on-month. This result is lower than the $47.78 million in “Godzilla 2: King of Monsters” two years ago, but afterThe number of theaters of the audience reached 4108.
Based on this calculation, the single-library revenue of “Godzilla vs. King Kong” reached US$10,509, which is slightly lower than the US$11,630 of “Godzilla 2: King of Monsters”. Coupled with the harvest on Wednesday and Thursday, “Godzilla vs. King Kong” accumulated a total of 48.5 million US dollars in the first five days, which is close to the total box office of “Creed” (57.93 million US dollars).
According to the calculation model of The-Numbers, after comparing the “Terminator: Genesis” and the 98 version of “Godzilla” that were also released on Wednesday, the expected opening of “Godzilla vs. King Kong” is 3,514. Ten thousand dollars, the actual figure is about 8% lower.
Synchronized with the big screen, “Godzilla vs. King Kong” will also be available exclusively on HBO Max for 30 days. Although Warner Bros. did not release the broadcast data of “Godzilla vs. King Kong”, it stated that it “has more views than any other movies and episodes on HBO Max.” At the same time, according to Samba TV statistics, “Godzilla vs. King Kong” In the first week, it attracted 3.6 million viewers in the United States and 225,000 in the United Kingdom, which is much higher than the 1.8 million US figures of Zach Schneider’s “Justice League”, showing that streaming media may have a certain diversion effect on the film’s box office.
It’s worth mentioning that since last year’s summer file “Creed” opened for $20.2 million, Warner Bros. has become the “number one player” in North American theaters, including “Wonder Woman 1984″ ($16.7 million), ” “Cat and Mouse” ($14.11 million) are among the best. Together with the record-breaking “Godzilla vs. King Kong”, Warner Bros. won many premiere box office best results.
Wonder Woman 1984 Stills Picture Source Douban
This is in sharp contrast with the box office overlord Disney in previous years: After Cinemark and other theaters refused to screen due to the sharing clause, the first weekend of “Legend of the Dragon” only took8.5 million US dollars, while the previous “Mulan” and “Spiritual Journey” were directly put on the Disney+ platform.
At the end of March, Disney announced that “Black Widow” will be withdrawn to July and provide online viewing options. The new Pixar film “Summer Friends Sunny” originally scheduled for June also skipped the big screen again. Only May 28 is left in the first half of the year. With the simultaneous appearance of “Kuira” on Riyuan.com, Disney still maintains a “wait-and-see” attitude towards theater channels.
From the perspective of word of mouth, the average score of “Godzilla vs. King Kong” on IMDb is 6.9 points (nearly 40,000 ratings), which is better than the 6.0 points of “Godzilla 2: King of Monsters”; The freshness of Rotten Tomatoes in “Godzilla vs. King Kong” reached 75%, which is also higher than the 42% in “Godzilla 2: King of Monsters”.
With the help of good reviews, the outlook for “Godzilla vs. King Kong” is expected to gradually rise, and it will catch up with the cumulative box office of “Godzilla 2: King of Monsters” (110 million US dollars), and is expected to become nearly one The first North American film to exceed 100 million U.S. dollars in recent years.
According to the forecast report released by The-Numbers, as theaters in North America gradually return to full capacity, the number of moviegoers will begin to recover in the second half of the year. It is expected that the annual box office will reach 6.3 billion US dollars, which is 3 of the 2.1 billion US dollars last year. About times.
The box office of global theaters is booming, and Hollywood sticks to the “window period”
At the same time, “Godzilla vs. King Kong” also made waves in theaters around the world.
According to the statistics of IMDbPro, the overseas box office of “Godzilla vs. King Kong” reached 123 million U.S. dollars in the first week. Among them, the mainland market stood out with US$69.2 million, accounting for more than 50% of the overall score; at the same time, “Godzilla vs. King Kong” also topped the list in South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the East Asian market once again became the main ticket warehouse for Hollywood movies. . In addition, Russia (US$6.96 million), Australia (US$5.86 million) and Mexico (US$5.34 million) also ranked in the forefront, all setting new highs for local Hollywood films this year.
Entering the next week, the cumulative overseas of “Godzilla vs. King Kong” rose to 237 million U.S. dollars, the mainland box office reached 136.5 million U.S. dollars, Mexico and Australia also exceeded 10 million U.S. dollars, and the box office trend has not been significantly weakened.
Regional box office distribution (data as of 4.5) Picture source North American box office list
If you further compare with the previous work of “Monster Universe”, you can see the pulling effect of “Godzilla vs. King Kong” on the theater: in Russia, “Godzilla 2: King of the Monsters” and “King Kong: Skeleton” The premiere figures of “Island” were 2.38 million US dollars and 4.81 million US dollars, equivalent to 34% and 69% of the same period of “Godzilla vs. King Kong”, and the highest series was 8.63 million US dollars of “Godzilla”. At the same time, “Godzilla vs. King Kong” is also higher than its predecessor in Australia and Mexico, showing that the film’s appeal to local audiences is increasing.
It is worth mentioning that the production cost of “Godzilla vs. King Kong” is US$155 million, which is close to the US$160 million of 2014 “Godzilla” and lower than “Godzilla 2: King of Monsters” (US$170 million) and “King Kong: Skull Island” (US$185 million). If the global box office of “Godzilla vs. King Kong” reaches 350 million U.S. dollars, Warner Bros. and Legend Pictures are expected to break even.
In addition to the regions that have been released, “Godzilla vs. King Kong” will also be expanded to Iceland (April 15), Sweden (April 28) and other countries, and will land in Lithuania next month (May 7 ), Japan (May 14), France (May 19) and Germany (May 20) and other key markets.
Entering 2021, the pace of global theater recovery is still uneven. Asia is the first to set sail with the help of local new films such as “Hello, Li Huanying” and “New Evangelion: The End”, while many European countries have experienced the first After three waves of “blocked” prices, the resumption of theaters was generally postponed to May. North America still shrank by more than 80% in the first quarter year-on-year, and “Godzilla vs. King Kong” is expected to be the starting point for box office recovery.
Of course, as a long-lost Hollywood special effects giant, “Godzilla vs. King Kong” also hit the theater’s demand for “popcorn” movies. Since last summer, there have been only “Creed” and “Wonder Woman 1984” in the A-level blockbusterLanded on the big screen, but both of these films struggled with word of mouth, and failed to fully stimulate the audience’s enthusiasm for admission. In contrast, “Godzilla vs. King Kong” focused on pure visual effects scenes and was immersed in supporting the big screen. The perfect fit of the style environment has finally become a catalyst for the box office recovery.
“Godzilla vs. King Kong” stills Image source Douban
The global box office recovery has also been stimulated by other good news.
At the end of March, Cineworld officially signed an agreement with Warner Bros. starting next year to implement a 45-day exclusive screening period in North American theaters, while the UK will start from 31 days and expand to 45 days. This is significantly shorter than the “window period” of 75 days to 90 days in previous years, indicating that Warner Bros. will return to a more traditional distribution model, but at the same time retain sufficient flexibility for HBO Max.
Since Universal Pictures and AMC established new contracts, the long-standing “window period” is undergoing reshaping. During the period when theaters were forced to close collectively last year, the “window period” as the cornerstone of the industry was once in jeopardy. Many filmmakers launched their new films directly on streaming media, or started experiments with simultaneous screenings on the theater network.
However, Hollywood did not choose to completely abandon the old model. Instead, after the negotiation, it shortened the time difference between the launch of theaters and the Internet, leaving room for development on the big screen and streaming media at the same time.
Number of streaming media viewers in the first week
Take “Godzilla vs. King Kong” as an example. Even if HBO Max subscribers can choose to watch online, the unique experience of the big screen still attracts many viewers to return to the theater, providing sufficient motivation for the subsequent box office recovery. Driven by Universal Pictures and Warner Bros., the big screen and streaming media are expected to form new”Symbiosis” relationship.
Of course, Disney, which has many celebrity IPs, has not yet made a final decision: After Disney+’s revenue soars and greatly increases its subscriber targets, Disney needs to maintain a delicate balance between theaters and streaming media. As the situation of offline channels picking up gradually becomes clear, Disney’s dynamics will have an important impact on the relationship between hospitals and networks in the future.