By While the amount of monsters in Legendary’s burgeoning Godzilla franchise may be growing the box office returns seem to be dwindling. While Godzilla: King of the Monsters won the weekend with a domestic pull of $49 million it came in well short of both the original Godzilla‘s opening and Kong Skull: Island‘s. The total was only slight below the $50 million expectation, however, so the studio shouldn’t be too upset, especially thanks to the $70 million the movie brought in from China, marking a $130 million international box. Giant monsters play well in Asia. Who would have thought?
The other two films this weekend actually played well better than studio expectations, with Rocketman landing a hefty $25 million. If it has the legs of Bohemian Rhapsody then Paramount could see quite the box office from the movie, and we could see even more musical bio pics in the future. Meanwhile, Ma did what Blumhouse films like to do: pull in solid box offices while being made for no money at all. With a $5 million budget the Octavia Spencer horror film landed $18.2 million. That’s enough of a profit to make anyone happy.
Overall, the box office was pretty strong and added to a summer that is outpacing last year’s by 9 percent. Still, not enough to bring the yearly box above 2018’s but we might be seeing a comeback if the hits keep on coming through August.
1. Godzilla: King of the Monsters – $49,025,000
2. Aladdin – $42,335,000
3. Rocketman – $25,000,000
4. Ma – $18,260,000
5. John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum – $11,100,000
6. Avengers: Endgame – $7,813,000
7. Pokémon Detective Pikachu – $6,665,000
8. Booksmart – $3,328,648
9. Brightburn – $2,315,000
10. The Hustle – $1,300,000
