‘Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire’ Review: A Thundering Bore Of Convoluted Excuses To Make Titans Clash

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer The Universal horror movie “Abigail” began as a modern-day twist on “Dracula’s Daughter,” but making a film about the legendary vampire’s blood-sucking scion wasn’t the reason why the filmmaking trio Radio Silence — producer Chad Villella and directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett — wanted to make the project their follow-up to 2022’s “Scream” and 2023’s “Scream VI.” “As freeing as it is to challenge the format of what a ‘Scream’ movie is, you’re playing in a pretty specific sandbox,” Gillett says.

With spring break simmering to 8% K-12 on break, and 1% colleges off, it’s hodgepodge at the weekend box office until 20th Century Studios’ Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes arrives to a $50M+ opening during the second weekend of May.

“Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” easily swatted away a pair of challengers to hold on to the top spot at the box office for the second week in a row, according to studio estimates Sunday.After its above-expectations $80 million launch last weekend, the MonsterVerse mashup brought in $31.7 million over its second weekend, a 60% drop from its debut.The Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures release, directed by Adam Wingard, has thus far outperformed any of the studio’s recent monster films except for 2014’s “Godzilla.”But with $361.1 million worldwide in two weeks, “Godzilla x Kong” could ultimately leapfrog the $529 million global haul of 2014’s “Godzilla.”The latest installment, in which Godzilla and Kong team up, cost about $135 million to produce.“Godzilla x Kong” extended its box-office reign as another primate-themed movie arrived in theaters.

A new trailer for the upcoming horror movie Abigail has been released!

EXCLUSIVE: In a deal worth $500,000 against $1.5 million, Legendary Entertainment has optioned Pulitzer Prize -finalist Annie Jacobsen‘s nonfiction book Nuclear War: A Scenario, as a potential reteam with its Dune: Part Two director Denis Villeneuve. The expectation is that Villeneuve would take this one as another giant project after he completes Dune: Messiah, which he and Legendary are developing as the conclusion of the trilogy.

Thanks to “Ready Or Not,” their two recent “Scream” movies, and entries in the “V/H/S” series, the Radio Silence team are the new “it” guys of horror. So what do Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett & co.

No dart gun, or First Omen, or Monkey Man will put Legendary/Warner Bros’ Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire to sleep this weekend. The pic, after an unexpected $80 million Easter weekend start, will continue to rumble with a 55%-60% second-weekend drop to between $32M-$36M. Through four days, the Adam Wingard-directed Monsterverse title stands at $87.7M, fueled by 57% of K-12 schools out Monday and another 14% colleges. Expect more cash today as, per Comscore, there are 28% of K-12 school out, and 5% universities.

Barbenheimer. Barbie, listed in our 2023 spring movie preview, and Oppenheimer, which was not, had yet to assert their primacy over the year’s box office and pop culture conversation.Few conceived those two films would spark a phenomenon that rippled through media, fashion, merchandising, music, and awards show after awards show after awards show.After all the hype and hot takes, red carpet looks, historic victories and milestones, the Barbenheimer convo only really finally abated with the Oscar wins that shuffled Barbie, Ken, and Oppy off the stage in March, ushering cinema into the spring/summer season.Now, new cinematic fascinations await, new soundtracks of the summer, your next new favorite character or performance, some star-making smash that’ll keep the world talking until 2025.

Selena Kuznikov Although Fala Chen teams up with the massive Kong to battle against a humongous hidden creature in “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” a minuscule monster snuck up on her at the premiere. “I got stung by a bee, but it’s okay,” Chen said. “I saw it on the carpet and was like ‘Oh there’s a bee, I should try to get rid of it,’ and then it stung me.” The TCL Chinese Theater and a portion of Hollywood Boulevard was transformed into a jungle wonderland on Monday for the premiere of the film.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter After three days of release, “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” stands as the third-highest-grossing movie of the year. It has collected a mighty $194 million globally in its opening weekend, ranking behind only “Dune: Part Two” ($626 million after five weeks of release) and “Kung Fu Panda 4” ($347 million after four weeks of release) in terms of overall ticket sales. The monster mashup, from Warner Bros.

whopping $37 million during its first week in theaters, according to IMDB’s Box Office Mojo. The Rebecca Hall-helmed big budget beastly buddy film, which The Post said has “a brain-busting plot,” opened in 3,861 theaters, and follows 2021’s “Godzilla vs.

J. Kim Murphy Some movie stars don’t lose their luster. A 90-year-old ape and a 69-year-old reptile are taking over domestic charts this weekend, as Warner Bros.

Warner Bros/Legendary Entertainment’s Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is out and roaring at the international box office, generating $15.9M from 49 markets through its first two days overseas (Wed/Thurs). Not included in that total is the strong China opening day today which came in at an estimated RMB 96.9M ($13.4M).

Brent Lang Executive Editor “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” is looking mighty as it heads into its opening weekend, earning an impressive $10 million in Thursday previews. The muscular results come despite the fact that the film suffered meh reviews — critics faulted the latest clash of the primordial beasts for hectic pacing and overstuffed plotting. Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman, for instance, dismissed the film as “overly busy boilerplate” (though he liked the finale).

In the wake of Dune: Part Two, Kung Fu Panda 4 and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Legendary/Warner Bros‘ Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire continues to provide momentum to the box office following a lack of event titles in Q1 due to the strikes. Tonight, sources tell us that the Adam Wingard directed monster mash movie is seeing $8M from previews that began at 3PM Thursday in roughly 3,400 locations. That’s arguably the second-best previews ever for a Legendary’s Monsterverse movie following the first 2014 Godzilla which posted $9.3M. That Gareth Edwards directed lizard movie went on to make $38.4M on its first Friday with a 3-day of $93.1M.

between lizard and monkey. A creaturely collab.But “x” is also the symbol that should have been prodigiously used to cross out the script’s many, many stupid ideas.

There is a twist with the latest offering from the now-decade-old Monsterverse, a franchise that has featured Kong and Godzilla in their own movies and then in 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong battling each other to the death. (These monsters never really die. But you knew that). The twist this time is there an even greater threat for these iconic giant creatures to each other and the world, so instead of being on opposite sides of the ring, they team up against an evil new villain, a batshit-crazy ape on steroids named Skar King, in order to save not just Hollow Earth — where most of the action takes place in a dense rainforest — but just about everyone else.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic Watching “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” I realized that the movie, a standard overly busy and mediocre blockbuster with a pretty awesome wow of a clash-of-the-titans climax, was demonstrating one of the essential principles of Hollywood movie culture today. Namely: All blockbuster movies are now connected! Kong, living in the Hollow Earth, where most of the film is set (the Hollow Earth is a place I’ve never much liked the idea of, since it seems like Earth’s version of a storage basement), is supposedly the last of his kind, but he discovers a child ape who actually looks like an homage to the cuddly creature in the 1967 Japanese film “Son of Godzilla.” This kid gorilla leads Kong to a tribe of scraggly hostile apes who are living in a slave society presided over by the Skar King, an evil ape with blotchy red hair who’s as tall as Kong and wields a skeletal bone whip that looks like it was fashioned out of the spine of a sea serpent.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter What happens when two otherworldly beasts team up to take on the box office? Theater owners will find out this weekend as “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” touches down in North America. The monster mashup, from Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment, is targeting $50 million to $55 million from 3,850 theaters in its first weekend of release.

Adam Wingard has always had a flair for the most ultra-vibrant and loud segments of the color spectrum. Growing up in the ’80s, the golden age of movie tie-in merchandise, the director vividly remembers the neon palette, the yellows, blues, and reds of seemingly every toy from “Transformers” to “Thundercats” to even just “the mellow yellow NASCAR” from “Days of Thunder.” Bold visuals and bright colors were a staple of “Godzilla vs.