Godzilla x Kong Squashes Monkey Man, First Omen Openings

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire were the monsters with the mostest at the box office this weekend, as Dev Patel‘s much-buzzed about feature directorial debut Monkey Man and supernatural franchise installment The First Omen both opened behind expectations.

Neither genre film ever had a chance of taking away the No. 1 spot from Warner Bros. and Legendary’s Godzilla x Kong, but had hoped for a bigger slice of the proverbial box office pie. Godzilla, from filmmaker Adam Wingard, is proving to be a significant victory for Josh Grode’s Legendary Pictures on the heels of Dune: Part Two, which is the top-grossing film of the year to date. And Godzilla is also a big in for Warner Bros. and Legendary’s MonsterVerse series, at a time when many franchises are struggling to remain fresh.

Godzila x Kong topped the chart with $31 million in its sophomore outing for a domestic cume of $135 million. It fell 60 percent, a relatively good hold for a title opening to $80 million.

Presented by Universal and Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions, Monkey Man placed second with an estimated $10.1 million. Heading into the weekend, tracking suggested that both Monkey Man and The First Omen would find themselves in a close race with $12 million to $14 million each.

One huge problem overall: a glut of male-skewing projects, although The First Omen succeeded in luring plenty of younger women as well (49 percent). The other two skewed more than 60 percent male.

While $10 million isn’t necessarily a bad number for a film that secured studio distribution at the 11th hour at the urging of Peele, expectations were high after Universal smartly debuted Monkey Man at South by Southwest, where it received a rousing response from the audience, influencers and critics.

Universal and the filmmakers are hoping for a long run, but word-of-mouth shifted as Monkey Man entered the marketplace. It earned a lukewarm B+ CinemaScore from audiences and divided exits on PostTrak surveys. Its Rotten Tomatoes score initially hovered around 94 percent but then dropped to 87 percent. (The First Omen’s RT score isn’t too far behind, at 81 percent.)

Patel’s film is inspired by the John Wick series and the legend of Hanuman, an icon embodying strength and courage. In addition to directing, Patel stars in the violence-laced, R-rated film as an anonymous young man wearing a gorilla mask who ekes out a meager living working night after night in an underground fight club when he discovers a way to infiltrate the elite group responsible for his mother’s death and exact his retribution. In doing so, he also helps rescue the city’s poor and powerless.

The First Omen, a prequel to Richard Donner’s 1976 film, opened to an estimated $8.4 million, putting it at No. 4 behind holdover Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. Disney always knew it was going to be a competitive playing field but decided to switch course and release the supernatural horror pic theatrically to help exhibitors make up for the content shortage prompted by last year’s strikes (The First Omen was made for Disney’s Hulu, not for the big screen, and therefore cost in the low $30 millions to make.)

The First Omen stars Nell Tiger Free as a young American woman who is sent to Rome to begin a life of service to the Catholic church when she encounters a darkness that causes her to question her own faith and uncovers a terrifying conspiracy to bring about the birth of evil incarnate. The pic earned a C CinemaScore, which isn’t unusual for the horror genre

Filmmaker Arkasha Stevenson directed The First Omen from a script she wrote with Tim Smith and Keith Thomas. Ben Jacoby has a story credit, while the film is based on characters created by David Seltzer. The cast also includes Tawfeek Barhom, Sonia Braga, Ralph Ineson and Bill Nighy.

Overseas, Stevenson’s movie started off with $9.1 million from 43 material markets, while Monkey Man took in just $2.6 million from its first 27 markets.

Universal was, however, able to celebrate Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer becoming his top-grossing film of all time internationally, with $638.4 million to date.

More to come.

April 7, 7:30 a.m. Updated with revised weekend estimates.

This story was originally published April 6 at 8:33 a.m.