A Godzilla sequel is already moving forward at Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. after the King of Monsters stomped all over the worldwide box office during its opening weekend and put up numbers far beyond what any pre-release prediction had pegged.
Variety and Deadline simultaneously broke the Godzilla sequel news early Sunday morning as the studio box office estimates rolled in and lavished Warner Bros. and Legendary with a $93.2 million domestic opening weekend. It fell a little short of the $98 million estimate that Friday’s big opening day pointed toward, but was still way ahead of the $70 million estimate heading into the weekend.
Launching a new franchise was the plan all along for Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures, and that plan is now moving forward. Legendary president and chief creative officer Jon Jashni told Variety, “Our initial goal was to re-brand and re-establish the property in a Tiffany way. Now, we’re trying to take in all of the results of the weekend.”
The success of Godzilla for the studio and director Gareth Edwards was further validated early Sunday afternoon when 64 territories worldwide where Godzilla also premiered pushed the global box office total to $196.2 million. It has already earned half the worldwide box office total of the 1998 Godzilla film in just three days, and the big Japan debut won’t occur until July.
Next up for Godzilla and its co-stars Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Olson, Aaron-Taylor Johnson and Ken Watanabe here in North America is a Blu-ray and DVD release, which should occur later this summer or in early fall.
