The Newly Made MonsterVerse Franchise Isn’t Doing as Well as It Should

By: Keaton Marcus

In 2014, Warner Bros. began a new cinematic universe dubbed the MonsterVerse, kicking off with another American reboot of the iconic Godzilla. After the movie was met with solid critical reception and some respectable box office returns, the studio decided to continue. In 2017, WB followed up by introducing another iconic monster with Kong: Skull Island which had a similar performance both critically and financially, avoiding disaster. You may think that the franchise was steady then, but all along it was a ticking bomb waiting to go off. The explosion happened with 2019’s direct sequel Godzilla: King of the Monsters which lost the franchise its Certified Fresh status on RottenTomatoes and couldn’t even break 400 million at the box office, considered a flop with its 170-200 million budget. Now, with the anticipated Godzilla vs Kong set for November this year, should we have worries for the big monster clash.

The idea for bringing back the classic monsters such as Godzilla and Kong was cool, and that showed in the 2014’s box office performance, where it grossed 524.9M on a 160 million budget. However, the fact that they didn’t do King of the Monsters directly after the 2014 reboot was horribly misguided. Instead, they chose to make a flick about Kong, which also worked, as it earned 566.2M globally, but by the time it reached 2019 and it was Godzilla’s time to shine five years later, people weren’t enthused enough to head to the theater in droves. Especially because of the lack of confidence, I mean WB decided to change the entire cast and the director. It just wasn’t the right choice, and audiences showed little interest in seeing a monster battle royale that should have been released three or four years earlier. The release timeline just didn’t make sense, and therefore, KotM generated just 386.6M worldwide. It was a film that needed at least 500-550M, and that was nearly impossible.

Though other than WB’s objectively terrible decision to make King of the Monsters after Skull Island, why are these results a tad unfair. Well take a look at Universal’s Jurassic World movies, I mean critically, they have a similar trend to the MonsterVerse, but in the box office, they are at a whole other level. Why is that? The first Jurassic World opened in 2015 to over 1.6 billion at the box office, and has a respectable Fresh rating on RT, which sprouted Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom in 2018, which despite receiving mixed reviews from critics, earned over 1.3 billion worldwide. I suppose the biggest reason as to why Godzilla 2014 didn’t go as big was because the giant lizard isn’t as popular as Steven Spielberg’s original Jurassic Park in 1993. So despite having the classic 1954 Godzilla movie, the already large fanbase isn’t enough to compare to the amount of fans for the dinosaur-centered franchise. But is it really safe to say that a franchise about Godzilla and Kong that requires each and every movie to make at least a half a billion won’t work? It seems like that with their most recent release, but there were specific problems with King of the Monsters that didn’t allow it to soar.

Well there’s the marketing for starters. These guys spent a whopping 120 million on only advertising and still didn’t get promising results at the box office. So what happened there? The trailers, so to speak, were just awesome—putting together Godzilla, Ghidorah, Rodan and Mothra for an epic monster mash with some killer tunes and spectacular special effects. But the first trailer was released only a little less than a year before the movie hit theaters, with the second trailer released six months before and the final one about a month before. While that doesn’t sound so bad, it’s a long time between the teaser and the release, which is never good news. Hollywood Reporter said the film “lacked urgency” as well. What also didn’t go well was what the trailers were really focusing on, climate change, which drew harsh criticism. It seemed as if the marketing campaign was in a dilemma on whether to show audiences big monster battles or nit-pick us about the choices we make. Audiences were hyped nonetheless, with the final trailer drawing over 24 million views and plenty of positive comments. I guess by May 31st, there weren’t enough willing moviegoers.

So what can we expect from Godzilla vs Kong? The mysterious fourth installment to the MonsterVerse. With a release date set for November 20th (that could change because of No Time to Die’s November date), there still hasn’t been a trailer released, not even a little clip advertising this thing. A teaser poster was released last year, but so far audiences have had to live with that. Screen Rant projects that WB will release the first trailer this Spring, so anywhere from the end of March to the last days of May. There’s no box office predictions of any kind yet, however, we do know that its directed by Adam Wingard, who’s known for the two Certified Fresh films You’re Next and The Guest, but also for the controversial reboot of Blair Witch and the Rotten V/H/S. This guy is truly a mixed bag, with a couple well-received pictures, and then a few stinkers, but not one of them has anything to do with the big-budget creature-feature that is Godzilla vs Kong. The movie will also feature a couple of the same cast members as King of the Monsters, with both Millie Bobby Brown and Kyle Chandler set to return, along with new folks like Alexander Skarsgard and Eiza Gonzalez. Let them fight!