Plus: the latest looks at ‘Wonder Woman’ and ‘Transformers 5,’ and news from SXSW
Opening stronger than even the best predictions, Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ Kong: Skull Island racked up a whopping $142.6 million global box office, $61 million of which came from right here in the US. Add to this the $37.8 million that James Mangold’s Logan brought in during its second weekend of release, and you’re looking at a near $100 million weekend just from the top two flicks at the box office, a figure that looks more at home in May or June than early March.
Despite the strong showing, though, Kong isn’t out of the red yet. The film has a reported $185 million budget, and when you add another couple or few dozen million to that figure to cover marketing costs, this monster movie has to kill in foreign markets as well, most notably China, where Kong will open in two-weeks’ time.
For comparison’s sake, the last Kong movie, Peter Jackson’s from 2005, opened to $50 million against a $207 million budget before eventually taking in more than half a billion globally. Vogt-Roberts version is also scoring well critically. As of press time the film was Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with a 79% rating.
Lest we forget, Kong: Skull Island is a part of a franchise that started back in 2014 with Gareth Edwards’ reboot of Godzilla. The next installment, Godzilla: King of the Monsters is in pre-production now with Kyle Chandler (Bloodline), Vera Farmiga (Bates Motel) and Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things) already in the cast; after that, the two titular monsters will go head to head in Godzilla vs King Kong, a clash of the titans that hasn’t been seen since 1962. King of Monsters is being written and directed by Mike Dougherty for a March 22, 2019 release; Godzilla vs King Kong doesn’t have a director yet, but according to THR a writer’s room has already been assembled, and the release date is scheduled for May 29, 2020. Long live the King, it would seem.
In other news and points of interest…
…DC and Warner Bros. released the final trailer for Wonder Woman, which delves into the Amazonian’s origins…
…Not to be outdone, Michael Bay’s Transformers 5: The Last Night also released a clip of new footage…
…John Goodman got his star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame this weekend, and to commemorate the occasion, his good buddy Jeff Bridges resurrected The Dude…
…And SXSW got underway in lovely Austin Texas, but for more on that we turn to our corner of the internet we’ve had a lot of really interesting posts go up over the weekend, including everybody’s favorite news of the weekend, the reveal of the first trailer for Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver, and reviews from Rob Hunter of both The Tranfiguration and Us and Them, as well as some non-festival stuff like Francesca Fau’s look at the allure of the Investigation Discovery network, and my personal fan theory that David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive is really a Twin Peaks movie.
And lastly, take a look at five of the most popular shots we tweeted over the weekend. Want more? You know where to find us.
THE WICKER MAN (1973) DP: Harry Waxman | Dir: Robin Hardy
SIN CITY (2005) DP: Robert Rodriguez | Dir: Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller, and Quentin Tarantino
SNOWPIERCER (2013) DP: Kyung-pyo Hong | Dir: Joon-ho Bong
DARK CITY (1998) DP: Dariusz Wolski | Dir: Alex Proyas
HANNIBAL (2001) DP: John Mathieson | Dir: Ridley Scott
