As expected, Godzilla delivered this weekend, but far above expectations, pulling in $93 million from Thursday midnight screenings to Sunday, which gives it the second best opening of the year, right behind Captain America ($95 million) and just ahead of Amazing Spider-Man 2 ($91 million). Given that it's not a comic-book franchise and the monster's last time out was the much loathed Roland Emmerich 1998 version, this is pretty impressive. Even more so that worldwide it's already amassed $196 million, making the expensive blockbuster a major profit already. I'm sure we'll see a sequel to this in a few years, given that it's guaranteed to make at least $225 million, and next week's X-Men is its only competition with the long Memorial Day weekend coming up.
The other new release was Disney's Million Dollar Arm, starring Jon Hamm, which didn't do much at all, earning just $10 million over the weekend, despite an "A-" Cinemascore (feel-good sports movies usually rank high with audiences). I guess Jon Hamm's movie career won't take off after Mad Men ends, but I always thought he seemed like a leading man from another generation anyway, which is why he was so perfect as Don Draper. Neighbors came in second with $26 million (Godzilla seemed to steal some of its audience), but now has a total of $91 million and will obviously earn well over $100 million, so that's a huge success for Seth Rogen, who's been on a roll lately (and for Universal, as this film cost just $18 million to make and has now earned $146 million worldwide). ASM 2 fell to third and will just barely cross $200 million overall, while The Other Woman came in fifth for a solid total of $71 million.
Top 5:
- Godzilla- $93.2 million
- Neighbors- $26 million
- The Amazing Spider-Man 2- $16.8 million
- Million Dollar Arm- $10.5 million
- The Other Woman- $6.3 million
In limited release, Jon Favreau's Chef has made just over $1 million total, while in older holdovers, Noah finally crossed $100 million domestically. Next week it's another big blockbuster weekend, as is traditionally the case over Memorial Day, with X-Men: Days of Future Past making its debut, along with the Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore comedy Blended. See you then!
