Box Office Breakdown for Weekend of 4/14/24

Movies

What’s up, Geeks + Gamers? It’s ODIN!

Civil War Overperforms and Dethrones Godzilla x Kong

Though Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire continues to dominate the global box office, it was the new and extremely divisive film Civil War that took the top spot domestically. Going into the weekend, some projections indicated that the new Alex Garland film would only make $20 million if it was lucky. Though the second weekend drop could end up bringing the film’s box office prospects back to Earth, winning against the third weekend of a strong performing film like Godzilla x Kong is quite impressive. While the box office totals for Civil War remain to be seen, what we do know is that the film’s $50 million budget means that it still needs to make over $125 million just to break even. The movie may be doing well in its opening, but to get to those heights, it would need to hold strong every single week, including against several similarly sized films, like next week’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. One thing that could help this Civil War stick around is the passionate debate surrounding it. On one side, you have people who are criticizing it as a liberal fantasy obsessed with Donald Trump and promoting journalists as heroes. On the other side, you have some (like myself) who think the film is solid and an excellent commentary on the heartlessness of journalists and the horrors of war. There are even other, more obscure opinions on either side of the “is it good or is it bad” debate. This kind of discussion likely brought more people out to the theater this weekend and could potentially bring more in the future. We will be keeping an eye on this at the daily box office and, of course, its second weekend.

According to the-numbers.com, the top 5 this weekend domestically were:

1. Civil War ($25.7 million as a new release)
2. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (50% drop in 3rd weekend)
3. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (36% drop in 4th weekend)
4. Kung Fu Panda 4 (29% drop in 6th weekend)
5. Dune: Part Two (42% drop in 7th weekend)

Godzilla x Kong Box Office Update

As of this writing, Godzilla x Kong has made $436,532,000 at the global box office. Roughly $157.9 million of that comes from the domestic market, $185,800,000 from the international take (without China), and roughly $92.2 million from China. These numbers will likely change over the coming days as some numbers get updated early in the week, but based on what is being reported right now, the film is still in the red at -$18 million, according to my RCC method. There are a couple of factors that need to be remembered with this reporting: the film is currently pacing strongly and will be profitable on my charting soon, and we still do not know how much Legendary gets at the box office since they were taken over by the Chinese company Wanda several years back. The only thing that has ever been indicated about this box office take is that it is more than 25%… but that still leaves quite a large amount of space. This is the same reason why the box office take for Dune: Part Two has still only made about $20 million in profits so far. The other important point about profitability is that Legendary had roughly 75% of the budget responsibility for each of these films, and Warner Bros., as a distributor, not only put in the other 25% but gets some cash with the fees often paid out to distributors. In the end, while Godzilla x Kong may not be that profitable on paper, that doesn’t mean the studios behind the film (and, in this case, Warner Bros. especially) won’t be able to see larger profits.

For video coverage of this weekend’s box office, check out my latest video HERE.

If you want further analysis on these or any other films, check out the full charting I do over at my website. Have a wonderful rest of your day, and, as always, God bless!

(If you ever want further insight into my methodology, see my previous articles HERE and HERE.)