• Box Office

World Box Office, April 12 -18, 2021

 

Like its outsize protagonists, Godzilla vs. Kong continues to be gargantuan at the box office.

As it nears $400 million in earnings, the epic has claimed bragging rights as the Hollywood release that’s the number one grossing movie of the coronavirus pandemic period domestically, internationally, and globally.

With its $12.2 million international earnings in the last weekend, the American monster movie increased its offshore total to $309.7 million. So far, the 36th film in the Godzilla movie series and the 12th film in the King Kong franchise has cinched a worldwide take of $391.21 million.

Dubbed GvK for short, the film directed by Adam Wingard is now also the biggest grossing installment of the MonsterVerse in China.

The sequel to Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Kong: Skull Island, starring Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Demián Bichir, Kyle Chandler, Brian Tyree Henry, Shun Oguri, Eiza González, Julian Dennison and Lance Reddick, has now earned $177.1 million in the world’s largest movie market.

However, the weekend’s box office champ in China is Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet, the latest installment of the Case Closed movie franchise based on the manga series of the same title by Gosho Aoyama. Filmmaker Tomoka Nagaoka’s anime movie raked in $16.8 million.

In Japan, Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet, voiced by Minami Hamabe, Megumi Hayashibara and Ogata Kenichi, reportedly performed strongly as well, but the box office figures were not yet available as this story was being written.

China remains the bastion of robust box office figures. To date that territory’s box office revenue has surpassed $3 billion (yes, billion). GvK is the sole Hollywood film doing spectacular business in the Chinese box office. The top earners are domestic releases, led by Jia Ling’s time travel comedy-drama Hi, Mom and Chen Sicheng’s action-comedy Detective Chinatown 3.

Still on the international box office race, Simon McQuoid’s Mortal Kombat showed fighting form with $5.7 million. The latest addition to the martial arts action franchise, based on the video game of the same name, has now made a total of $19.2 million overseas, with solid performances in Spain, Thailand, Indonesia, Russia, Taiwan, Mexico and Australia.

Speaking of Australia, the land down under continues to be a lucrative launching country for Will Gluck’s Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway with weekend earnings of $2.4 million. With a voice cast led by James Corden, the live-action/animation hybrid’s international box office cumulative has reached $14.7 million.

In the North American box office race, aside from GvK, which earned $7.71 million, Nobody racked up $2.5 million for a total of $19.05 million.

Third place went to Evan Spiliotopoulos’ Jeffrey Dean Morgan starrer, The Unholy. The horror flick drew $2.06 million to bring its overall take to $9.56 million.

Don Hall and Carlos Lopez Estrada’s Raya and the Last Dragon secured the fourth spot with $1.9 million with cumulative earnings now at $37.67 million. Tim Story’s Tom and Jerry crawled back to the top five with $1.09 million and overall earnings of $42.58 million.

Meanwhile, in Nielsen’s subscription video on demand (SVOD) ratings chart for the week from March 15 to 21, Disney Plus broke through Netflix’s dominance with not one but two Disney shows. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which follows the events of Avengers: Endgame, featuring Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan and Wyatt Russell, captured the second berth. Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany and Kathryn Hahn’s WandaVision took the sixth spot.

The Netflix shows that made it to Nielsen’s SVOD chart, in addition to the two Disney Plus entries mentioned above, are, in the order of their ratings: Ginny & Georgia, The Crown, The One, The Lost Pirate Kingdom, Last Chance U: Basketball, Bridgerton, The Great British Baking Show and Lucifer.