Just last week I was reporting over on our sister site WEREWOLVES.COM on the success of John Krasinski’s A QUIET PLACE PART TWO; specifically I was noting how it had been the first movie released since the beginning of the ‘Rona pandemic in spring of 2020 to top $100 million at the box office. However, it wasn’t the first blockbuster released since the ‘Rona lockdown, so I wondered why the movie that *was* the first, GODZILLA VS. KONG, hadn’t crossed the hundred-million mark first. As it turned out, GODZILLA VS. KONG still lacked a few thousand dollars before it hit that total. Well, as predicted by me and a plethora of Hollywood analysts, the kaiju slobberknocker did in fact hit that mark this past weekend. Thus there are now *two* movies to exceed 100 million bucks in theaters in the post-Covid era (boy does it feel good to be able to type those words, “post-Covid”!). And those two films—they’re both Horror movies! Score!
This past weekend was pretty lackluster in terms of movie ticket sales overall. But as this linked article succinctly puts it: “…if audiences aren’t showing some sort of surge around a title at the box office, they unfortunately do not want to spend their disposable income and time to see that movie…it’s whether the title possess product-driven power or not. Get it? It’s not about cinemas being dead, or people falling out-of-love with the movies.” In other words, people will gladly return to movie theaters. People *have* gladly returned. But they won’t show up for just any movie. It has to be something they really want to see on the big screen. Something like GODZILLA VS. KONG, the torchbearer for the return to the theater. Congrats, Kong and Godzilla!