Are You Happy Legendary/Gareth? (Or My Godzilla Prediction Was Right)

If Godzilla didn't drop the second week people would be surprised. Movies always drop at 50% or more the second weekend. X-Men, a highly anticipated movie, also came out during Godzillas second weekend so that's going to stagger the numbers.

I understand that you must not have liked the film, but saying you're glad the numbers dropped is odd and I don't understand why you wouldn't want this movie to be successful. Just because you didn't enjoy parts of it doesn't mean it should fail.

Yea I agree with TARRELZILLA, we might have gotten different numbers this weekend if X-men hadn't just come out. Although I did expect for the mixed reaction to impact the movie sooner or later. But mostly, I don't really care. I liked the movie and it was successful enough to make a sequel, so hopefully the next one will be the Godzilla movie we all deserve.

Just to ask, if you disliked this movie so much and wished it to fail, why are you continuing to pay attention to it and bring your negativity to those who enjoyed it?

Well said tarrellzilla, I concur.

I respect you opinion on the movie, Gareth said, it's a movie he as a fan wanted, but if you're gonna discuss it's monetary success:

The drop is because of the inmense amount of money x-men is doing, to put it on perspective  98 Godzilla had a drop on its second weekend (59%, as any other movie) but there was no other movie to attract or distract the people (deep Impact, maybe) on the other hand our Godzilla is going against the best x-men movie since X2, with a drop on it's second weekend of 57%, also 98 Godzilla was on theaters for 8 weeks with a worldwide gross of $379,014,294, and this Godzilla with only 2 weekends has $323,393,000 already, who knows how many weeks it will be on theaters, remember perspective is everything.

I agree with SANDO337, quit being a downer. Godzilla surpassed $320 million in the last 24 hours, double what the film's budget was making it a success and it's barely 2 weeks into it's release and not even distributed to the audience in Asia yet. 

Also, I could care less if you didn't like the film, that's perfectly fine but to wish it to fail means you want the Godzilla franchise to fail considering Toho is done making suitmation films and this was Godzilla's last chance to appeal to a Western audience (which I'm happy it succeeded in). 

And by the way, how dare you question if Gareth is passionate about Godzilla?, he has said it time and time again, he's a fan, he was before working on the movie, the only thing you seem passionate about is the movie failing, which is not, there will be sequels, thats the proof that its a success.

@ Tarrellzilla

I'm glad because of the exact reasons I stated.  It shows the companies that there is definitely interest, but they didn't get something quite right.  And 67% is still quite the drop, regardless of competition.  Even with strong competition from Godzilla, Spider-Man 2 only fell 53% in its 3rd weekend.

Wow, guys.  Have to be 100% loving of the film and defend it, regardless of its faults, otherwise you're just being begative for negative sakes.  And wanting the movie to fail? Where in the world did I say that?  I think some of you need to realize what a forum truly is about.

@ Jorgeman

Uh, where did I say Gareth wasn't passionate about Godzilla?  It seems you guys are more about dissing someone with a differing opinion than you are about having an intelligent discussion/debate.  And why are you comparing '98 Godzilla's sales without adjusting for ticket price inflation?  You're right, perspective is everything.

It's hard to debate when you constantly bash the '14 version, I won't say you aren't a fan, but you aren't really allowing much room for reason, which is surprising, it's so easy to embrace the movie despite it's faults and if I had only read your comments in the forum and not seen it yet, my expectations would be very skewed and negative about the film. Fortunately, I know that the movie will both succeed, and the majority of both G fans and casual movie fans thought highly of it, not the other way around, and that, is a good thing.

@ Xenomorphzilla

Bwahahaha! Constantly bash the new Godzilla?  Is that why a had a long section of positives in my review, as well as gave the film a 7.5?  No, what I think you guys can't handle is that not everyone, not even diehard Godzilla fans, LOVED the movie.  In fact, I'd say most people have mixed feelings about it.  Probably why all user ratings averages that I have seen are around a 7.

@XENOMORPHZILLA

thismeinteil just bashes anyone who doesn't agree with his opinion, because he belivies he is right and everyone else is wrong.  Just read his comments before the moive came out, then read the ones after it come out.  This guy is hypocrate of the highest calibur.  Its people like him that destroys a fanbase.  Basically just don't even read anything this guy posts anymore.

I think it's perfectly fair to not like the movie from a casual fan persepctive (I feel it's blasphemy from a true G fan) but I find some of your criticisms unfair, I think Godzilla got close to just the right amount of screen time and if he was constantly visible throughout the movie, it wouldn't have had such a great reception.

@THISMEINTEIL

Godzilla falling off the way it did is problematic.  What will the studios do, now?  Will they ignore the latest backlash and proceed with all guns blazing, with the $225 million budget that an epic Godzilla production would need.  Or will they be conservative (again) and even more hestitant, now that the Godzilla franchise has had back-to-back disappointments (to some of us)? 

It is almost too late to make a Godzilla with all the destruction and mayhem that I thought was needed to keep the public's attention.  Yes, Godzilla fans will flock to the next movie, but the general public, who are weary of Godzilla anyway, may have become jilted.  The projected returns for a sequel would be lower than this year's Godzilla box-office returns.  I don't think the studios will be in a hurry to do a sequel with so many concerns.  And I wouldn't be surprised if they came up with a more established director, more familar with the public, to give the franchise another boast. 

ThisMeInteil,

I think the reason that some members here are turned off by your post is because it smacks of an "I told ya so" mentality when the results are actually too middle-of-the-road to say one way or another. I suppose the best way to gauge is asking your thread's question: Is Legendary/WB happy? As it turns out they are.

Godzilla made $10 million less than it was predicted for the four day weekend. That's not nearly as bad as it seems.

As for the GINO comparison, that's not necessarily shocking. GINO was a long time ago, the film industry has changed; less people see movies and inflation is part of that. More people were in attendance for Burton's Batman and Raimi's Spider-Man than there were for Batman Begins and The Amazing Spider-Man. They still garnered enough love and money for bigger budget sequels. Knowing Legendary, history seems to be repeating itself for the better of this franchise. That alone is worth positive thinking.

Godzilla is #1 movie in the world

I agree with everything the OP (starting this thread) said.

Its also what I had predicted myself. This movie would start strong and dive. Now people are saying its due to the X-Men.

No, it isn't. This is not a usual drop

Box Office Mojo

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3848&p=.htm

"In second place, Godzilla plummeted 67 percent to $31.1 million ($39.4 million four-day). While that decline is a bit better than Cloverfield's 68 percent, it's still much worse than most comparable titles. Thanks to strong marketing, moviegoers rushed out last weekend; unfortunately, the movie they saw wasn't exactly what was advertised. Combine that weak word-of-mouth with tough competition from X-Men, and a steep drop was in order. The movie has now earned $156.8 million, and is on pace to finish between $205 and $225 million."

That is a pretty large drop. The interest was there for Godzilla to peform as Godzilla not as a cameo.

Do you know what 3 different people who are not really into Godzilla asked me?

Do you wanna know? This is how frustrating this whole thing was. I kid you not.

Here is the question:

"Did Godzilla always have to take naps when he fought  monsters?"

#3 people, asked the same damn question.

Then look at this write up:

http://www.thevine.com.au/entertainment/movies/godzilla-trailers-and-lying-to-an-audience-20140523-281438/

"it seems a lot of people aren’t all that impressed with the New Adventures of Fat Godzilla as he smashes up much of America’s west coast before taking a nap. "

There is that nap thing again. The next question I get is why was Godzilla and the monsters following Ford around.

Ford lived in Japan, then the monsters seemed to be there and then in Hawaii, and then of course his home in San Fran was the big battle.

There is a ton of interest in Godzilla. In fact, most Godzilla fans would be shocked to know just how many people know about Godzilla and wanted to see Godzilla go on a rampage. Know about Godzilla from their childhood.

Godzilla fans tend to think its just a tiny fanbase. Probably to a degree, for the hardcore Toho movies that is true, but, a ton of people grew up with this, and I am talking about people from housewives to regular professionals.

Legendary and Edwards thought there wasn't this interest in Godzilla and they had to make this human story catch the wider audience.

The wider audience wanted to see Godzilla do what Godzilla does. This is a huge miscalulation to think otherwise.

At any rate, I seriously hope the decline doesn't continue further down or this is going to be very sad.

Godzilla deserves better than this. I want to think he is the King of the Monsters and not the King of the sleepers.

THISMEINTEIL - The numbers and information you provided were very interesting. Thank you for sharing that! I can certainly understand your hope for a strong sequal in the future. That being said, Godzilla 2014 must succeed to a large degree in order for Legendary and Warner Brothers to venture into the realm of sequals. I know you're a huge fan of the Godzilla mythology - and I know that Edwards' iteration of Godzilla wasn't exactly to your liking. However, you and I - and everyone else here on the board - are all Godzilla fans. We encompass so many points of view, likes and dislikes, hopes and dreams. Yours are just as valid as ours. Please remember that it's a two-way street. We want to engage with you in exciting speculations and conjecture! We want your opinions, you're a very smart individual with a solid eye for facts - a trait you've proven time and again! Simply understand that certain topics can be rather, um, touchy. We'd all rather just get on with the fun stuff and let the negative aspects drift under the bridge. Of course, there's no denying that some information, regardless if it's unpleasant, must be brought to light. However, as a whole, I'm certain we all can appreciate the new beginnign Godzilla has been given. :)

the fans are not blind nor fools, we all see the movie has flaws some big and some small, some of us decide ignore them and enjoy the movie, others express their disappontment, but to say that its failing is just ridiculous, yes it has dropped as any other movie does after the first week, maybe to much, maybe not, but you cant say $323 milions its a flop and to come here and say "I told you so" just makes you look like and inmature child in need for approval of others, its not enough been right, you must show people they are wrong, to what purpose?

TALISMAN - Wow! That's a great deal of information you provided! Very interesting to read, for certain. As for the "nap" aspect: I don't believe Godzilla simply decided to catch a little beauty sleep after dealing with the MUTOs. His nuclear reserves were low after having utilized his atomic breath, and he'd been soundly thrashed by a pair of exceptionally strong, vicious and otherwise unpleasant monsters that utilized EMP blasts to play air-hockey with his insides! I suspect any one of us would likely lose consciousness after such an ordeal - were we lucky enought to survive it, of course! As an aside, did you find it distasteful when Godzilla collapsed from exhaustion and injury? I've asked several people, and I believe your opinion would be honest and well-presented. :)

I honestly agree with g-man here.

The reason why there isn't much Godzilla in Godzilla is because they're obviously setting up for sequels. I think you can expect some really epic monster action in the sequel.

@Godzillasaurus rex

No, Edwards said this would could be a stand alone film, and prior to the release there was no indication of a sequel. To say he made a highly controversial decision on the ground of following it with a sequel that wasn't even guaranteed to happen is false. This Godzilla was done the way he wanted regardless of whether there was a sequel or not, as for monster action in the sequel what chance is that? A lot of people seem to be under the impression that not a lot of Godzilla in the first means more in the second, which has no grounds really. Godzilla could still come in to clean up scenes, granted from the overall highly negative responses I've seen from his cut aways on this film I doubt there will be many in the next.

GODZILLASAURUS REX ›

How do you have a sequel with other monsters (more monsters even supposedly) and show more Godzilla?

I really can't understand Legendary if that was their goal. How long has it been since we all have been "teased" lets say about Godzilla? 5 years? From the news about the movie, to the comic cons to all the word on the net etc.

To further tease or use this movie as almost a "teaser" for the next movie seems almost ludicrous if Legendary decided on such a approach.

I think the teasing is fine up till the 50th minute, but, being a blockbuster and how this was adverstised I think after that point, the teasing has to end.

I am unclear how Godzilla can now work in the sequel? If they put more of him, less time will be spent on the other monsters. Can he use his atomic breath more? It seemed that was quite limited in this movie.

It also seems that we might be waiting a long time for the next movie which futher teases us.

Edward's is going to work on a Star Wars standalone. 

I think this set up movie should have showed much more of Godzilla in terms of quality. Less swimming, less cutaways etc.

The time was right for Godzilla to really show up. They kinda missed that wave. Waiting a long time for the sequel, I don't know what the mood will be like at that time.

SOMETHING REAL ›

I did find it distasteful for Godzilla to collapse and sleep like that. He seemed mirror Ford at that point. Recall that scene when Ford was lying in the mud and he looked dead? Then suddenly opened his eyes? It reminded me of that.

I think Edwards should have made Godzilla more Godzilla or resilient. Godzilla in the past has had awesome enemies of all kinds, long battles where he finally overomes them.

Remember Godzilla 2000? He goes on a rampage after destroying the alien creature.

Godzilla vs Gigan, Godzilla was bleeding from the head as Gigan and Ghidoarh went at him, Gigan drawing blood as Godzilla lie there taking everything that Gigan had to offer.

Godzilla eventually gets up and bangs his hands on his chest as is ready to fight. He flips Ghidorah around ( I know some of Gigan stuff is stock footage) but it demonstrates Godzilla's fighting spirit well, and they swim away not sleep.

anguirus in raids again, that was one heck of a battle and long one. Vicious. People underestimate the strength of anguirus.

Also Godzilla has full reign on his atomic breath. He uses it when he wants, not so sparringly like in this movie.

Then I also thought it was not a good thing to have Godzilla literally jump the Muto from behind. It made the victory less sweet even though the atomic breath build up was well done.

@SOMETHING REAL

How do we know that Godzilla was exhausted from using his atomic breath.  Gareth Edwards and the script-writer did not explain this version of Godzilla enough, which leads to all of this speculation.  Personally, I was confused and a little embarrassed by his collapse (my daughter-in-law, viewing her first Godzilla movie, said she expected a more bad-ass Godzilla).  I was even more confused seeing Godzilla lying there motionless and no one is snapping pictures or in awe of him or anything.  it was a horrendously directed scene.

After seeing the greatest set of trailers ever, I predicted Godzilla could bring in $800 million to $1 billion dollars.  That number might sound rather high to many of you, but not really.  If the ridiculous "Iron Man 3" ot Transformer 2 could pull in $1 billion, then a great Godzilla movie could do the same.  People were pumped for Godzilla.  And I really believe that if the movie had been done right we wouldn't have it under-performing in its second weekend.

THISMEINTEIL-I see there are some people giving you a hard time here. But I totally agree with you. When someone asks me if they should see this film, I feel like I have to give a disclaimer. I wish that were not the case, but I have to give my honest opinion. I get the feeling that some of you commenters here equate my and others opinions to not being a fan, or that we are just being" negative" for some unkown, perhaps sinister reason. Not that it should matter, but it kind of disturbs me. It's like, "How dare you critisize this movie, it's Godzilla! It's CGI! You must love it!" I've been watching Godzilla for around 35 years. I watched them on TV in the 70s. I bought bootlegs of the Heisei series before they were released in America. I've been collecting merchandise since before some of you were born. I'm a fan. But as a fan, I'm not going to sit here and tell myself that this film, as a whole, was anything other than just okay. And not one of you is going to convince me otherwise. 

I decided I will most likely not see this film again in the theater. I think I'll just save my money and maybe go see Maleficent. If that makes me a crappy fan, then fine. Maybe when someone makes something more than a mediocre movie, I'll be a better fan.

Although I will buy the blue ray when it comes out. Maybe someone will have the good sense to add a little more Godzilla into it. And I'm happy there will be a sequal, because again, maybe someone will have the good sense to put a little more Godzilla into it.

As for Edwards vision...If I want to be teased, I'll put a bowl of cool ranch Doritos in front of my face, eat one, and then try like hell not to eat anymore. That pretty much sums up my G14 experience.

I personally liked but didn't love the movie. But with that said, I'm glad it is doing well and I am excited about sequels. The 98 movie making more money in the box office does not equal to it being a better movie and in fact, the fact it was such a horrendous take on Godzilla is probably something that turned off a lot of fans from giving this new American version a chance. Overall, i'm pleased with the result and glad the interest is back and will most likely be back for a long time

We all should be happy about one thing. People want to see Godzilla.

A wide audience wants to see Godzilla, not a dumbed down packaged version. The studios think they have to sell Godzilla a certain way, make him more palitable for the wider audiences.

The truth is in the pudding. Those box office numbers on that first weekend, that is the proof. People went in there to see Godzilla do his thing.

People came to see Godzilla because the trailers showed him. Its when you see him in the trailer you start to wonder why are they hiding him in the movie??

I am not sure why Godzilla has captivated people's imaginations for so long. I think there are a few things that have added to it.

To me Godzilla has always represented somethign that could put the armies of the world at his mercy. You know WAR is big business, and it affects so many people. Hiroshima is a direct result of WAR

WAR and Godzilla is not something that can be separated. When you see Godzilla fight the military as in the old Toho movies, that deeply resonanates I feel.

That majestic side of him was missing here. Its a powerful send home message when you see him stand toe to toe with the best the army has to offer.

That is the Godzilla people remember. Of course we also have to include his ICONIC ROAR. 

Its a roar unlike any other monster in the history of filmaking. Its a roar that somehow fit with Godzilla and only Godzilla. There is something there.

I think that Legendary misjudged the wider audience beyond the hardcore fans. Remember, Edwards said "i made this film for everyone" he was speaking on if it was for the fans etc.

What they don't understand is that many in the wider audience want what the hardcore fans wanted.

When a movie company and director realize this, then and only then will you truly get Godzilla minus the empty feeling at the end.

OP, I'm sorry you're getting so much hate from a lot of the community here. I too was disappointed with the movie,  and I haven't mentioned that until now because I didn't want to deal with all of the "you're not a true fan!" backlash.

He has a right to his opinions and to feel the way he does. This doesn't make him any less of a Godzilla fan.