Godzilla 2000 as a sequel to Godzilla 98?

[InfiniteHollywood]

I was always surprised that there wasn't more effort to import the other films over here after 2000. As I mentioned before, Godzilla 2000 wasn't seen as much of a success in the US, but I mean, it made like $4 Million on opening weekend and ended up making $10 Million over the course of its short theatrical run. Not a blockbuster by any means, but how much skin did Tristar have in the game?

Considering all they did were some edits and maybe a VERY minimal advertising budget, it had to be pretty much all profit.

When you look at how much money they had invested in the rights to Godzilla, you'd think anything would be good since it's you know, better than nothing. I know that they're kinda at that scale where if it doesn't make $100 million, they don't care, but had they treated the Godzilla franchise like arthouse or indy films, it could have been very profitable. By that I mean, purchase them from Toho for cheap, do a short theatrical run, and make bank on that.

Presumably they could have made G98, Godzilla 2000 and Megaguirus as a trilogy of sorts. With a little editing, again, maybe shoot a couple inserts. It's not like the films couldn't be connected, especially if you do a little creative dubbing. Could have been done on the cheap and if you make $5-10 Million each on them, it's not nothing.

Considering how quickly Toho was pumping out movies at the time and the brand awareness of Godzilla was still pretty hot coming off of the 1998 fever, it seems like a missed opportunity. But they obviously needed someone with a vision and different viewpoint.

[Chrispy_G]

I was always surprised that there wasn't more effort to import the other films over here after 2000. As I mentioned before, Godzilla 2000 wasn't seen as much of a success in the US, but I mean, it made like $4 Million on opening weekend and ended up making $10 Million over the course of its short theatrical run. Not a blockbuster by any means, but how much skin did Tristar have in the game?

Considering all they did were some edits and maybe a VERY minimal advertising budget, it had to be pretty much all profit.

When you look at how much money they had invested in the rights to Godzilla, you'd think anything would be good since it's you know, better than nothing. I know that they're kinda at that scale where if it doesn't make $100 million, they don't care, but had they treated the Godzilla franchise like arthouse or indy films, it could have been very profitable. By that I mean, purchase them from Toho for cheap, do a short theatrical run, and make bank on that.

Presumably they could have made G98, Godzilla 2000 and Megaguirus as a trilogy of sorts. With a little editing, again, maybe shoot a couple inserts. It's not like the films couldn't be connected, especially if you do a little creative dubbing. Could have been done on the cheap and if you make $5-10 Million each on them, it's not nothing.

Considering how quickly Toho was pumping out movies at the time and the brand awareness of Godzilla was still pretty hot coming off of the 1998 fever, it seems like a missed opportunity. But they obviously needed someone with a vision and different viewpoint.

I think about this type of stuff all the time. I wonder how Godzilla Reborn might have gone down if gotten made. It was evidently a "sort of sequel" to G2K...so it would have been interesting if they could have used Godzilla Reborn to kinda tie G98, G2K and Reborn together...to sort of clarify and codify a connection between the 3 of them.

Could have been interesting.

[miguelnuva]

Intreasting question, let's say reborn, g2k and Megagurus all came out together and the storyline was that was the last egg due to American editing, I wonder would G98 be looked at differently.

I wonder if fans would have had a worth it to get the G2k trilogy.

[InfiniteHollywood]

Certainly an interesting thought. I suspect G98 would still be disliked, but it might have picked up some steam in the states.

[Chrispy_G]

Intreasting question, let's say reborn, g2k and Megagurus all came out together and the storyline was that was the last egg due to American editing, I wonder would G98 be looked at differently.

I wonder if fans would have had a worth it to get the G2k trilogy.

I am surprised that Sony, or Sony partnered with Toho, didn't try to do some "Wrath of Khan" esque sequel to G98. Like, okay, it was a hugely expensive film that didn't reliver deliver for a lot of people...but it was still well known and highly publicized. You could have done a sequel with half the budget, made it more in the traditional vein of a Toho Godzilla film. Production wise, very much what Schlesinger pitched for Godzilla Reborn. Like an American version of a Toho production on Steroids.

Imagine a version of Godzilla 2000 made as a Sony-Toho co-production with a mixed cast and featuring huge chunks in both languages (Something like Inglourious Basterds) but with a $30-50M budget and more time for all of the fine-tuning in the post-production process. Made as a sequel to G98.

We could have ended up with a hell of a good movie. Think Godzilla 2000 but just super enhanced on every level, as a sequel to G98. It might have been a really good, well received Godzilla film that went a long way towards redeeming G98.

[Legion1979]

.....I'm sorry what? You're actually SURPRISED Sony didn't do something like that?

[Chrispy_G]

.....I'm sorry what? You're actually SURPRISED Sony didn't do something like that?

Thats not what I meant. Just that it would have been awesome.

They had the Godzilla rights for years and options for sequels. To just call the first film a loss and give up...seems like such a lazy resignation.

It is shocking that they didn't do SOMETHING and produce SOME kind of Godzilla film while they still had the rights.

If you try another attempt entirely, that is one avenue....but to make ANY kind of sequel, one that course corrects in a huge way, costing much less than the first but delivering a much more traditional Godzilla experience....it makes sense. If it works, you have created a sequel film, and redeemed and increased the value of the first film retroactively.

Then you get to do a 3rd film, potentially a bigger success....and end up with a trio of Godzilla Films where the first really missed the mark but the 2nd and 3rd simplified things and returned them to their roots and became much more successful, helping the first film feel like slightly less of a miss-step.

Instead of just one big miss, they may have ended with a miss that had one or two smaller sad but much higher quality sequels and an overall Trilogy that is potentially well remembered.

[miguelnuva]

Considering G98 actually might have made profit and from all research I looked fkr it did Sony should have honestly went back to the drawing board.

Hindsight is 2020 but Godzilla 2000 and Godzilla reborn might have given then good outs if they decided let's spend and little money and make Toho's Godzilla the last son of G98.

I could see Godzilla 2000, Orga and Miba selling much better than G98 and the baby figures would have, us Godzilla 2000 was actually a badass.

I can see little boys seeing G98 as a coward running away while G2k would be running toward fights.

[StreamOfKaijuness]

They had the Godzilla rights for years and options for sequels. To just call the first film a loss and give up...seems like such a lazy resignation.

It is shocking that they didn't do SOMETHING and produce SOME kind of Godzilla film while they still had the rights.

It only seems that way from a modern-day perspective. Modern-day Hollywood studios are so much more desperate to build their film slates around franchises and established IP than they were in the 1990s.

Just a few months before Sony Pictures released Godzilla in 1998, they released As Good As It Gets, a romantic dramedy starring Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt. Whereas Godzilla cost them $130m to produce and drew a total of $136m in ticket sales at North American movie theaters, As Good As It Gets cost just $50m to produce and it brought in $148m at the North American box office, toward $314m total worldwide. Sony and Nicholson achieved similar results with the 2003 romantic comedy Something’s Gotta Give, which did $124m in domestic business toward $266m worldwide on an $80m production budget.

Sony’s biggest hit of 1996 was Jerry Maguire, a sports-themed drama starring Tom Cruise which did $153m domestic toward $273m worldwide on a $50m budget. Sony had also previously struck gold with the 1992 legal drama A Few Good Men, starring both Cruise and Nicholson.

In the Summer of 1997, Sony released the Harrison Ford action thriller Air Force One, their biggest hit of the year, which brought in $172m domestic toward $315m worldwide on an $85m budget. (EDIT: Silly me, Men In Black was Sony's biggest hit of 1997.)

Sony’s biggest domestic hit of 1999 was the Adam Sandler comedy Big Daddy, which pulled in $163m domestic toward $234m worldwide on a budget of just $34.2m. Sony and Sandler hit it big again with Mr. Deeds in 2002 and Anger Management in 2003, the latter co-starring Nicholson.

In 2000, Sony’s top movie was Roland Emmerich’s The Patriot, a war drama about the American Revolution starring Mel Gibson, which did $113m domestic toward $215m worldwide.

The days when $100m+ worth of moviegoers would flock to theaters for Adam Sandler comedies or Mel Gibson historical dramas are now long gone. Those types of star-driven films, which used to be Sony Pictures’ bread and butter, have mostly become the domain of at-home streaming services in the modern era. Hollywood has grown increasingly reliant on big-budget spectacle and the presumed allure of known brands to draw people out to movie theaters, but 20 years ago, Sony didn’t need an ongoing Godzilla film series in order to stay afloat.

Even when it came to film adaptations of existing IP, Sony at the turn of the century had better success stories than Godzilla. Their adaptation of the children’s novel Stuart Little cost about as much to produce as Godzilla and actually topped it at the domestic box office, and even though it made less in total worldwide, it was received much better by audiences, so Sony produced a sequel. Likewise, The Mask of Zorro didn’t make as much money as Godzilla but it also didn’t cost as much and audiences liked it overall, so Sony eventually produced a sequel to that as well.

Sony’s decision to not make a sequel to Godzilla (1998) was no different from 20th Century Fox’s decision not to move forward with a sequel to Planet of the Apes (2001). Even though PotA was profitable (it made 3.6x its budget worldwide) and it was Fox’s top movie on the 2001 domestic & worldwide box office charts, the suits at Fox correctly acknowledged that most people who saw the movie didn’t like it, so they just moved on to developing other films while letting that franchise IP go dormant.

Sony made the same call with the Godzilla franchise for the same reason. Even though their attempt at a Godzilla flick was profitable (it made 2.9x its budget worldwide) and it was Sony’s top movie on the 1998 domestic & worldwide box office charts, the suits at Sony recognized that most audiences responded negatively to the movie and that a sequel would draw significantly less business, so they just moved on. Nowadays, in franchise-driven modern Hollywood, if a film adaptation of a known IP like Godzilla makes enough money to be profitable, that’s all the reason that studios would need to proceed with a sequel, even if the actual audience reaction to that first flick was largely negative and the sequel would be destined for significantly less business. That’s exactly what happened with WB & Legendary’s modern Godzilla film series.

[Chrispy_G]

Nowadays, in franchise-driven modern Hollywood, if a film adaptation of a known IP like Godzilla makes enough money to be profitable, that’s all the reason that studios would need to proceed with a sequel, even if the actual audience reaction to that first flick was largely negative and the sequel would be destined for significantly less business. That’s exactly what happened with WB & Legendary’s modern Godzilla film series.

That's a pretty extreme appraisal of the situation and sounds a bit like applying a 20/20 hindsight bias to how things panned out. A little film called Endgame was sucking all of the air out of the room for KOTM. Plus, the Monsterverse is a prime example of why it can be valuable to continue on with an IP, Godzilla vs Kong found a lot more success than KOTM, and they are moving forward with another film which will be primed to potentially be the biggest hit of the series because they took a shot on continuing. Meanwhile, every entry spikes the ancillaries for the prior entries. Blu Ray packages with Kong, KOTM and GvK all in one, etc

A G98 sequel with half the budget and a "Wrath of Khan" type approach...which was to make something more stripped down and crowd pleasing, an easy "that was so much better than the first" kind of film, could have really delivered for them.

[Legion1979]

Chrispy, stop. Everything StreamOfKaijuness said makes 100% sense.

First off all, fans need to fucking STOP whining about how the success of other movies in 2019 were what hurt KOTM. That was annoying in 2019 and is obnoxious as hell in 2022. Fans love to blame KOTM's underperfomance on everything BUT the movie itself and its too easy to cry and say "But...but...but Endgame and...and...and Aladdin...and if KOTM had no competition it would have made SO much money and..."

Stop it. Can we move on from that please?

The Monsterverse in a weird example of success. Realistically, there really SHOULDN'T have been another film after KOTM failed. But the reality is that Godzilla vs Kong was going to be a film that would have done extremely well from the pure curiosity factor of Godzilla and Kong finally fighting again after almost 60 years. It was an absolute sure bet. I personally think anything else BUT Godzilla vs Kong probably wouldn't have been made after KOTM underperformed. Who knows how the film would have done in a world that wasn't effected by COVID but it's release last year was timed perfectly. The entire Monsterverse has defied conventional thinking. And as much as fans don't want to hear it, Kong saved Godzillas movie career in America, not the other way around.

Like StreamOfKaijuness said, the 90s were a different time. Things didn't work the way you seem to think they did. Having lived thought the entire build up to G98 and the aftermath there was no way Sony was going to make ANY sequel to it. The movie didn't perform was well as expected. Critics tore it apart. Most fans hated it. Merchandise sales sucked. There was no financial reason to make another one. It took over 15 years for someone else to try again.

[miguelnuva]

Chrispy, stop. Everything StreamOfKaijuness said makes 100% sense.

First off all, fans need to skreeonking STOP whining about how the success of other movies in 2019 were what hurt KOTM. That was annoying in 2019 and is obnoxious as hell in 2022. Fans love to blame KOTM's underperfomance on everything BUT the movie itself and its too easy to cry and say "But...but...but Endgame and...and...and Aladdin...and if KOTM had no competition it would have made SO much money and..."

Stop it. Can we move on from that please?

The Monsterverse in a weird example of success. Realistically, there really SHOULDN'T have been another film after KOTM failed. But the reality is that Godzilla vs Kong was going to be a film that would have done extremely well from the pure curiosity factor of Godzilla and Kong finally fighting again after almost 60 years. It was an absolute sure bet. I personally think anything else BUT Godzilla vs Kong probably wouldn't have been made after KOTM underperformed. Who knows how the film would have done in a world that wasn't effected by COVID but it's release last year was timed perfectly. The entire Monsterverse has defied conventional thinking. And as much as fans don't want to hear it, Kong saved Godzillas movie career in America, not the other way around.

Like StreamOfKaijuness said, the 90s were a different time. Things didn't work the way you seem to think they did. Having lived thought the entire build up to G98 and the aftermath there was no way Sony was going to make ANY sequel to it. The movie didn't perform was well as expected. Critics tore it apart. Most fans hated it. Merchandise sales sucked. There was no financial reason to make another one. It took over 15 years for someone else to try again.

I agree. It's time to stop talking about how other films killed kotm just like it time to stop talking about kotm being this failure that would have ended Godzilla's career in America despite several big budget films doing worse and still getting sequels.

[Legion1979]

I agree. It's time to stop talking about how other films killed kotm just like it time to stop talking about kotm being this failure that would have ended Godzilla's career in America despite several big budget films doing worse and still getting sequels.

I dont think KOTM's failure would have "ended" Godzilla's American career. But I think the Monsterverse franchise was extremely lucky the very next thing to come along was Godzilla vs Kong. That movie definitely rejuvenated things. I still think any other follow-up starring Godzilla would probably have done worse than KOTM.

[Chrispy_G]

I agree. It's time to stop talking about how other films killed kotm just like it time to stop talking about kotm being this failure that would have ended Godzilla's career in America despite several big budget films doing worse and still getting sequels.

I dont think KOTM's failure would have "ended" Godzilla's American career. But I think the Monsterverse franchise was extremely lucky the very next thing to come along was Godzilla vs Kong. That movie definitely rejuvenated things. I still think any other follow-up starring Godzilla would probably have done worse than KOTM.

You almost act like you are salty that the Monsterverse is continuing or that KOTM didn't end it.

There ARE contributing factors to EVERY film's success beyond its own quality. Not every film that flops is bad(cult classics that gain huge following years later) and not every film that is a massive success does so purely because of quality...overhyped but terrible sequels sometimes make more than the originals, a lot more, despite almost universal agreement about the first film being better.

I'm a movie theater manager and I was a movie theater manager when Endgame and KOTM came out. A survey from several years ago revealed that the average American family goes to the theater once in a 2 month span, on average. Basically, in a 2 month span, the average family is going to pick ONE movie to see.

Endgame didn't just do well, it crushed records. Go to Box Office Mojo and compare. No other film made so much money so rapidly. It wasn't a Titanic or Avatar that opened well in December and then had insane word of mouth and replay value throughout January and February. This was a movie that not only beat the opening weekend record, but absolutely decimated it. It 100% sucked all of the air out of the room, and yes, it checked more "This is our movie this month" boxes than almost any other film in the modern era has.

This wasn't just KOTM opening in proximity to 'generic successful box office movie #5'...it literally opened in the wake of the biggest cultural moviegoing event of the last decade, plus Aladdin.

I'm not saying that KOTM would have made 2-3 times as much as it did without Endgame, but to act like Endgame pulled ZERO of KOTM's audience away from it is a ridiculous statement. Also, typically, opening in the weekend right after Memorial Day weekend is not usually the best move, as Memorial Day Weekend is a big movie-going weekend and usually the weekend directly after is a 'cool down' weekend. WB took a bit of a gamble with a non-traditional window and it didn't pay off. You can bet 100% that if Aladdin were not on the calendar for Memorial Day Weekend that KOTM would have staked out that weekend, opened with a 4 day holiday weekend, and would have put many more butts in seats.

Hell, you can just as easily look at the 4 Monsterverse films and argue that the only one that had an "off" performance is the one that fell into the crater left by Endgame, while the other 3 have all performed within a certain range despite a lot of different variables factoring into their releases.

Endgame and Aladdin having a big impact on KOTM's box office isn't an opinion, it is a fact.

[miguelnuva]

I agree. It's time to stop talking about how other films killed kotm just like it time to stop talking about kotm being this failure that would have ended Godzilla's career in America despite several big budget films doing worse and still getting sequels.

I dont think KOTM's failure would have "ended" Godzilla's American career. But I think the Monsterverse franchise was extremely lucky the very next thing to come along was Godzilla vs Kong. That movie definitely rejuvenated things. I still think any other follow-up starring Godzilla would probably have done worse than KOTM.

You almost act like you are salty that the Monsterverse is continuing or that KOTM didn't end it.

There ARE contributing factors to EVERY film's success beyond its own quality. Not every film that flops is bad(cult classics that gain huge following years later) and not every film that is a massive success does so purely because of quality...overhyped but terrible sequels sometimes make more than the originals, a lot more, despite almost universal agreement about the first film being better.

I'm a movie theater manager and I was a movie theater manager when Endgame and KOTM came out. A survey from several years ago revealed that the average American family goes to the theater once in a 2 month span, on average. Basically, in a 2 month span, the average family is going to pick ONE movie to see.

Endgame didn't just do well, it crushed records. Go to Box Office Mojo and compare. No other film made so much money so rapidly. It wasn't a Titanic or Avatar that opened well in December and then had insane word of mouth and replay value throughout January and February. This was a movie that not only beat the opening weekend record, but absolutely decimated it. It 100% sucked all of the air out of the room, and yes, it checked more "This is our movie this month" boxes than almost any other film in the modern era has.

This wasn't just KOTM opening in proximity to 'generic successful box office movie #5'...it literally opened in the wake of the biggest cultural moviegoing event of the last decade, plus Aladdin.

I'm not saying that KOTM would have made 2-3 times as much as it did without Endgame, but to act like Endgame pulled ZERO of KOTM's audience away from it is a ridiculous statement. Also, typically, opening in the weekend right after Memorial Day weekend is not usually the best move, as Memorial Day Weekend is a big movie-going weekend and usually the weekend directly after is a 'cool down' weekend. WB took a bit of a gamble with a non-traditional window and it didn't pay off. You can bet 100% that if Aladdin were not on the calendar for Memorial Day Weekend that KOTM would have staked out that weekend, opened with a 4 day holiday weekend, and would have put many more butts in seats.

Hell, you can just as easily look at the 4 Monsterverse films and argue that the only one that had an "off" performance is the one that fell into the crater left by Endgame, while the other 3 have all performed within a certain range despite a lot of different variables factoring into their releases.

Endgame and Aladdin having a big impact on KOTM's box office isn't an opinion, it is a fact.

If you want to argue Endgame and Aladin I'll bring up Lion King, Toy Story 4 and Spiderman all in the same summer. It's $100 dollars for my family to go to theaters now and I had to miss Spiderman in theaters for the first time because Lion King and Endgame were must see for the family.

Had Kotm being positioned better I think 25-30m more was possible.

The greatest factor against it however was the Comic Con trailer that stole the show was released over a year before the film came out.

[Legion1979]

Good lord, Chrispo, talking to you is like talking to a very noisy brick wall.

If KOTM was a better film, and had offered audiences something they really wanted to see other than mindless monster fluff, it wouldn't have mattered what other films were opening around it. It would have definitely done better. Period.

Fanboys really need to stop crying about Endgame. In the words of another billion dollar Disney franchise that American Godzilla wishes it could be as popular as; Let it go.

[StreamOfKaijuness]

Since the beginning of the MonsterVerse, Godzilla fandom has been blaming the box office underperformance of those films on anything other than general audience reactions to the films themselves.

When Godzilla had a steep second-weekend drop back in 2014, G fandom blamed it on X-Men: Days of Future Past opening that weekend.

When Godzilla: King of the Monsters opened -48% lower than Godzilla and finished -45% lower domestic and -27% lower in total worldwide, G fandom blamed it on Avengers: Endgame opening more than a month earlier and/or Aladdin opening the prior week.

Heck, most of G fandom seems oblivious to the fact that Godzilla vs. Kong actually did -9% less business in North America than G:KotM, making Godzilla vs. Kong the lowest-grossing entry of the MonsterVerse at the domestic box office, but the part of the fandom that does realize it just blames it on the pandemic and/or HBO Max.

The common thread is always the notion that there really were a lot more people beyond the fandom who wanted to go see these Godzilla movies in theaters but they just couldn’t for one external reason or another. All of that scapegoating ignores the reality that Kong: Skull Island scored a best-case-scenario $61m opening weekend despite opening one week after Logan’s $88m debut, and the reality that Kong: Skull Island dropped a solid (not steep) -54.4% in its second weekend right alongside the gargantuan $174m opening of Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast that same weekend. None of Legendary’s Godzilla films had to go up against a colossal opener like Beauty and the Beast in their second weekends, and yet Kong: Skull Island had a much stronger second-weekend hold than all of them (which led to a much stronger opening-to-total multiplier).

The truth is that ALL of the Godzilla movies that have played in North American theaters from 1998 to the present have had weak staying power at the box office. From the TriStar film and Godzilla 2000 to Shin Godzilla and Legendary’s trilogy, every single one of them did more than half of its total domestic business during its first week in theaters.



Even when ignoring Godzilla 2000 and Shin Godzilla as unique outliers, all four of the Hollywood-produced Godzilla films have done more than half (52.3% to 56.1%) of their total North American theatrical admissions during their first seven days in release. All of these Godzilla movies have catered primarily to people who were already interested in seeing them, without catching on much with general audiences beyond their opening weeks. That’s been the case whether these Godzilla movies started playing on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. That’s been the case whether they opened in March, May, August or October. That is not a new phenomenon that was caused by Avengers: Endgame or HBO Max or anything else.

There was no Avengers: Endgame or live-action Aladdin playing at the same time as Sony/TriStar’s Godzilla in 1998 but it still did 54.4% of its eventual total domestic business by the end of its seventh day in theaters. Fast-forward 21 years later, WB & Legendary’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters did 54.6% of its eventual total domestic business by the end of its seventh day in theaters.

Avengers: Endgame had already done 94% of its eventual domestic total before G:KotM even opened. When G:KotM did debut to a deeply disappointing $47m opening weekend, Endgame only did $8m in ticket sales that weekend. Even if all of those $8m worth of moviegoers had decided to see Godzilla 2 that weekend instead, which would have raised its opening figure to $55m, that still would have been deeply disappointing compared to G’14’s $93m debut, and it still wouldn’t even have matched Kong: Skull Island’s $61m opening.

Even though 2019 was filled with heavy-hitters, that year didn't break the cumulative record for domestic box office grosses. The year 2019 landed in 3rd place with a combined $11,320,874,529 domestic, behind 2016 in 2nd place ($11,377,066,920) and 2018 in 1st place ($11,889,341,443).

That means that North American moviegoers combined spent over $550m more on movie tickets in 2018 than they did in 2019. They spent over $50m more in 2016 than they did in 2019.

People could have spent as much at movie theaters in the year of G:KotM's release as they spent the year before, but they didn't. If $500m worth of additional moviegoers wanted to go see Godzilla 2 that year, they would have, but they didn’t want to.

I dont think KOTM's failure would have "ended" Godzilla's American career. But I think the Monsterverse franchise was extremely lucky the very next thing to come along was Godzilla vs Kong. That movie definitely rejuvenated things. I still think any other follow-up starring Godzilla would probably have done worse than KOTM.

Considering how each MonsterVerse entry to date has consistently drawn fewer and fewer moviegoers in North America.....



.....and considering how Godzilla vs. Kong just barely crawled past the $100m domestic milestone by the end of its run, it would take a reversal of that consistent trend to keep the next MonsterVerse film in 2024 from becoming the first Hollywood Godzilla movie to finish with a domestic total below $100m. G fandom would need to blame that on A Quiet Place: Day One, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse and/or the two-months-later Captain America: New World Order. Maybe Daredevil: Born Again streaming on Disney+ would be the scapegoat.

[Legion1979]

Wow. That's the kind of post everyone should read

But they won't, because it's easier to cry about Endgame and how it's never Godzilla's fault.

[JAGzilla]

A slightly depressing post, but yeah, it's pretty much a case-closer. I was all set to take a "why can't both factors be to blame?" stance, but that's been deflated now. History shows again and again that these just aren't movies that catch on with the GA. They're niche. They get a front loaded audience of fans, people who gravitate towards monster/big spectacle stuff in general, anyone that shows up for a particular actor, and a few assorted moviegoers, and then that's that. They aren't likely to gain any traction with anyone else.

But I think most of us have always known that, whether we like to admit it or not. This genre just isn't for everyone, and it never will be.

[Chrispy_G]

The density on display here is baffling. I will elaborate in the dedicated Box Office Thread.