Weekend Predictions: Will Godzilla Crush the Critics with a Massive Opening Weekend?

May 30, 2019

Aladdin

Godzilla: King of the Monsters leads a trio of new releases hoping to make an impact at the box office this weekend. It will have no trouble earning first place and even the low-end of predictions are at $50 million. Rocketman has the best reviews of the week and it could continue the positive trend for musical biopics. Finally there’s MA, a psychological horror that could become a midlevel hit, but even if it fails to live up to expectations, it was inexpensive enough to break even. Meanwhile, Aladdin and John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum will remain in the top five, while Avengers: Endgame could be one of six films earning more than $10 million over the weekend. This weekend last year, Adrift was the biggest new release opening with just $11.60 million, while Solo: A Star Wars Story was the number one film with $29.40 million. There should be three films that top Solo and as many as six that top Adrift. 2019 should come away with an easy win.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters is the 35th movie with Godzilla in it and a direct sequel to 2014’s Godzilla. That film earned great reviews from critics, but a lot of Kaiju fans complained that there wasn’t enough Godzilla. King of the Monsters’ reviews are a lot worse with critics complaining there is not enough plot and too much Kaiju battling each other. ... What? I think this is a case where the critics and the moviegoers simply want different things and that’s okay. The buzz is loud enough that the film could open with $60 million, but I think it will open with $56 million. This is a nearly identical opening to John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum and while King of the Monsters cost a lot more to make, it should be enough to break even sooner rather than later and enough to justify another installment in the MonsterVerse.

Aladdin smashed expectations last weekend and it doesn’t have to deal with direct competition this weekend, so that should help its legs. Additionally, it is a family film with an A-rating from CinemaScore. On the other hand, it is a post-holiday weekend, so a 50% drop-off is nearly guaranteed. Even a 55% drop-off would still result in a solid second place result with $41 million over the weekend for a two-week total of over $180 million. I think that’s the most likely scenario and I also think Disney will be very happy with this result.

If Rocketman does as well as its reviews and its buzz suggests, then it could be the latest musical / musical biopic to top $100 million domestically. If so, we could be seeing even more of these movies made, that is until some studio decides to do with them what Disney did with super hero movies and create some Musical Cinematic Universe. Hopefully not. The film has a slim chance at $40 million, including the previous paid previews, but I think $35 million is more likely. This is still a great start and given the film’s more mature target audience, it could last long enough to top the century mark before it is done.

MA reportedly only cost $5 million to make, so the question isn’t whether or not the film will earn enough to pay for that production budget, but whether or not it will do so on day one. Its reviews are neither truly good or truly bad, which is what you expect with a low-budget horror movie. Unfortunately, it does have some direct competition with Brightburn and that film’s box office troubles are not a good sign for this film’s chances. It could open with close to $20 million, or it could fall to fifth place with $12 million. I’m going with $15 million, which is still a good start for a film like this.

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum should round out the top five with $12 million over the weekend for a running tally of just over $125 million. It is on pace to hit $150 million domestically, which would have been good enough to justify a sequel if that were is global box office.

Avengers: Endgame will likely fall out of the top five with just over $10 million over the weekend. However, since it is still aiming for top spot on the all-time worldwide chart, it is still worth tracking.

Filed under: Weekend Preview, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Avengers: Endgame, Aladdin, John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum, Rocketman, BrightBurn, MA, MonsterVerse