Gareth Edwards: How soon Production for Godzilla Sequel begins Depends on China

hmmm.... wonder how it will turn out?

@BigBadBen - Haha no worries, I only know briefly that Yoshimato initially started off with plans to make a first-ever 3D Godzilla movie, and used that to obtain permission from Toho to use Godzilla and Hedorah. Of course it then sparked off a lot of rumours and speculation that Godzilla 2014 would feature Hedorah as Godzilla's enemy but that wasn't the case. Turns out, he had meant to use them for his own sequel. And to realize his wish of making a 3D movie, he went about getting investors, and Legendary studios made a commitment to produce the new Godzilla film and co-funded by Warner Bros, where Gareth Edwards was chosen to direct it. Which is why we have an American-made Godzilla film today.

Talisman but Pacific rim was all fighting no story. Thats what made it not do well. What the Godzilla sequels need is 5/10 5/10 of fighting and story, A good amount of both.

@destroyah-x,

true when i heard about it as well he was going to actually rename hedorah to deathla in that plan that was scraped. I just hope that when legendary works on the sequal that they actually make it twice as good as the first, yeah sure there were some flaws with the new film but i still liked it for what it was...far better than tristars in my opinion. :)

@Something Real

- That is a very sensible and reasonable answer you just provided. But that said, the movie industry is a serious business, and how many chances does one get should one fail to bring in the numbers, especially for a movie that is no longer as small-budgeted as Monsters but we are talking over a 100 million dollars at risk here, considering that Legendary and Warner Brothers are co-funding the project. Therefore we cannot expect a director to treat it like his graduation project or competition masterpiece because mass-audience perception is at stake here. Which brings me to provide my further answer to you in my response below :)

@Talisman,  @KoldWarkid62 & @BigBadBen

Talking about Pacific Rim - It's a good show for Kaiju fans and it carries a lot of punch and awesomeness, but it does have its share of issues. The movie came with an odd/obscure title, which gives one no indication of what the story is about unless you actually watched the trailers, and not everyone from the mainstream audience looks out for such things and not everyone is a fan of Guillermo Del Toro too who is well-known for very unusual productions. To be honest, before I watched any trailer of Pacific Rim, my first thought upon hearing the movie title was that it must have been a disaster film that had something to do with volcanoes. There was nothing familiar that people could associate the movie with, and it ended up threading into unknown territory, unlike Godzilla which has been a household name in the world of monsters. Couple this with a lack of aggressive marketing, Pacific Rim turned out to be quite a mixed bag. Despite praises from fans, it's sequel today has yet to be greenlit despite Guillermo working on it, because again, box-office numbers are the determining factor. Over $400 million of sales may not quite be sufficient to warrant a sequel, but worthy of further investment should Guillermo be able to come up with a much fantastic sequel script.

As for Godzilla, I suspect Legendary Studios may pretty much stick with Gareth Edwards for the sequel because they probably expected Godzilla to make say, a modest $500 million? If that's the case, then Gareth has done a good job for the studio but fails to crush the box office. With the hype meter so high on Godzilla, projections really went wild here, but when the movie slumps as quickly as it debuted with explosive results, this calls for reflection by both the studios and the director. The difference exploring the sequels between Pacific Rim and Godzilla lies in their very foundations. My guess is, audiences are more prepared to forgive a movie that started off from obscurity, but are much more discerning and demanding to a movie that comes with a long history and reputation. Comparisons between their previous experiences and the new are bound to take place. As such, garnering an 'average' rating from audiencs around the world is not going to cut it out here. The only question left is, if the studio is giving Gareth the opportunity again to further Godzilla, will the mainsteam audiences be as willing to?  

DestroyahX- You sound like a pacifist, And your trying to make a point out of everything. We are talking about a Godzilla movie not LINCOLN, The movie is gonna break 500 million i am certain, Legendary is gonna give Gareth one last shot for the sequel, Also dude the whole franchise isnt depended on the damn BOX OFFICE. Also stop comparing Godzilla to comic book characters like Xmen, Those characters are alot more populaur and so are there movies, Thats why its made 700 mill, Also there movies are advertised alot more unlike Godzilla. This is the first godzilla movie in 10 years, Cut it some freaking Slack it did a great job with what it had.

I respect your opinion that there wasnt enough Godzilla in the film, But dude didnt that kind of make it more fun to watch? Because it doesnt get boring every scene that godzilla is in there not boring at all, every scene he is in is done right! unlike most Godzilla films. Compare this to G vs the smaug monster, Though that ones a classic the characters are dull and the storyline is kind of stupid. You guys have to understand that this film is like most Godzilla films. In Godzilla 1954 the ORIGINAL WHICH HAD NO OTHER MONSTERS, Godzilla was only there for 13 minutes. In this one he is there for 14 minutes, "I counted."

@Destroyah-X

Totally agree with you on the name and marketing of Pacific Rim. As cool as I think the movie is, the name really says nada about what the movie is about. I think they marketed it to a small degree and just let it sink or swim on its own. As much as I would love to see a sequel, they wrapped the first one up fine for me.

Back to Godzilla, have any of you guys seen/have "Godzilla - The Art of Destruction"? It's a phenomenal book. A lot of cool stuff, but it gets my blood boiling because there are so many sketches and concepts of Godzilla fighting the MUTOs, as well as other scenes that would have made for a better movie. You look at these pictures and imagine what should have been. There are even sketches of the military engaging him!

I keep hoping when they release the Blu-Ray, they'll have a G-Fan edition that has all those scenes in it, in addition to the throwdown at the airport! Yeah, right.

Destroyah X-: this movie also had X-Men to deal with the weekend after it came out, while X-Men only had an Angelina Jolie movie with witches to worry about, hardly a valid comparison. 

Also, the 98 movie's best competition was the first X-Files movie when it was already 4 weeks in and that movie made Neighbors OW-type numbers adjusted. It had virtually no competition to worry about all throughout its run, and still failed to hold. It had the 2nd lowest domestic/opening weekend total of all movies that year despite being marketed to death for over a year and no competition to deal with. If it were released today, to the 2014 movie's competition (which it's had every week since it's been out), it would be lucky to break $180 mil domestically.

It's no more a liability than Batman Begins failing to sell more tickets than Batman & Robin (and it did), which BTW, this movie sold more tickets than Batman Begins. Also, it just opened up in China and hasn't opened in Japan yet and still outgrossed BB, so don't even give me this "$440 mil is nothing to brag about" BS.

Kmanx89- You the man your the only one who is smart on this forum section. Woo yeay for smart people.

I'm surprise nobody else pointed this out. TASM2 dropped at around the same rate domestically as this after it was met with 2 big summer movies, actually, more than this movie. Godzilla made a combined $61,744,639 after X-Men and Malficent came out, while TASM2 made a combined $33,590,660 the week after Godzilla and X-Men came out. After that, it made $5,431,099 in week 5 and $3,043,898 in its 6th week.

 So yeah, he's comparing apples and oranges.

Again, as for "this failing to sell more tickets than GINO 98" need I point out: Batman Begins failed to sell more tickets than Batman & Robin and it didn't have nearly the level of competition that this movie has had to deal with immediately after it came out, but guess what? It got a trilogy and made over a billion dollars with both sequels, while Batman & Robin is still widely regarded as one of the worst films ever, not even a blip on the radar basically. BTW, it has user and critic scores of over 70% on IMDb and RT.

Guys, this is getting really hilarious, I am not gonna directly respond to our dear friend @GorillaGodzilla but based on all the things he's been uttering so far, he now reminds me of an 11-year old kid going about his ranting that makes no logical sense. What are his intentions? To spoil this thread really? Moderators perhaps you want to give him a pad on the shoulder to remind him to cool it. Or maybe he's really just a kid. How do I figure that? Let's see:

#1: Godzilla, after more than 15 years of absence from the big screen, received so much hype and excitement from fans and non-fans on social media that it simply Crushed the US and foreign Box-office in it's first weekend debut. The same is taking place in China.

He says: " Stop comparing Godzilla to comic book characters like Xmen, Those characters are alot more populaur and so are their movies, Thats why its made 700 mill, Also there movies are advertised alot more unlike Godzilla. This is the first godzilla movie in 10 years, Cut it some freaking Slack it did a great job with what it had. " - Oh really? Tells people X-Men and Spider-Man are a lot more popular than Godzilla (a well-known icon for over 60 years) but conveniently forgets that Godzilla had a really strong marketing presence online and opened bigger than both these movies. Oh, we get it.

#2: Despite opening bigger than both Spider-Man 2 and X-Men, the fact remains that both these movies have already outpaced Godzilla by over $200 million each. And the remaining late openings in China and Japan alone are not going to help Godzilla make up for this gap in the box-office race. What happened to Godzilla's phenomenal rise and equally fast flat performance in the US and overseas markets? Numbers also show that cinema screens everywhere are shutting out Godzilla faster than they do than for R-rated movies like Neighbours despite the latter opening one week earlier. Today Godzilla is down to #8 in the Box-office and sandwiched between two R-Rated movies and making around the same money as them. (Neighbours and a Million ways to die in the West)

He says: " Dude the whole franchise isnt depended on the damn BOX OFFICE.
Go revamp your Godzilla history and come back here. also its dropping in america because you cant get tickets anymore, Its out of theatres! You should stop being negative about the box office because dont you want to see a better sequel??" - Tells people money-making isn't a movie studio's ultimate objective and thinks we can continue to get sequel after sequel without having to make enough funds from the box-office to do so. He doesn't wonder why cinema screens are shutting out Godzilla faster than usual. Out of theatres? Really? We are not supposed to feel negative about Godzilla's current performance at the box-office because we won't get a better sequel by doing so. Really?

#3. Godzilla was rated mostly as 'Average' by movie-goers, same goes for its key market China. People in this forum cited reasons for the film not meeting up to expectations on certain levels. Yes we know no movie is perfect but what does he think?

He says: "Just understand this film take it in it wasnt perfect but it really was perfect wasnt it? In its own way it was perfect. This godzilla was EPIC i dont get your points about that. And there is gonna be a sequel who cares if Gareth directs it, I thought he did a very good job with a rather Cheesy storyline. " - Okay. Perfect, not perfect. Not perfect, perfect? Cheesy but epic. Can you make up your mind please?

#4. Tells people at every turn that he gets their points and respects their opinions. Then when somebody says something negative about the movie ...

He says: " THIS FORUM SECTION SHOULD BE CALLED THE HATER ROW I MEAN GOD. The movie was great in its own way. It wasnt meant to be a SMASH AND BASH FILM HOW MANY DANG TIMES MUST I SAY THAT. Not falling in the dirt you dumby. Read this And understand it your idiotic perifrian. "  - Whaaat ?

#5. And when someone else says something he likes to hear about Godzilla 2014 ...

He says: " You the man your the only one who is smart on this forum section. Woo yeay for smart people. " - Woo!

3 letters to describe what I think. - LOL 

DESTROYAH-X - Indeed. In the end, the film industry's primary concern is out to turn a profit and second chances amidst the cogs of such a powerful and unforgiving machine are few and far between. I just feel that Edwards has something more to offer, thus my wish for him to receeive another go. In Godzilla, I saw glimpses of such an interesting and creative mind! I can't help but wonder if the studios had a hand in the problems the film experienced. I absolutely loved Godzilla, but I'm not so zealous in my lauding of the film that I'm incapable of seeing - and acknowledging - its faults. However, I wonder if the extremely intimidating corporate machines breathing down Edwards' neck might have somehow played a part in some of his, hmm, less successful choices within the film. Naturally, we are all, in the end, responsible for the choices we make. Yet, we can sometimes make poor choices when subjected to high levels of stress. Of course, what I've suggested is complete and utter speculation - take it with a grain of salt. :)

GORILLAGODZILLA77897 - You are capable of discerning an individual's intelligence based on a handful of paragraphs? I'm disinclined to believe this; otherwise, you'd be responsible for screening the vast majority of candidates interested in entering prestigious academies and fields of vocation which demand keen intellects. The many I.Q tests present throughout the world would be rendered obsolete.

   I can see that you are certainly a large fan of the Godzilla franchise, and that's fantastic! We need people like you to keep the love of the King of the Monsters alive and kicking with zeal! However, I implore you to please remember that the vast of majority of the people with whom you are speaking are also large Godzilla fans. We all want to see Godzilla continue to do well - and to do that, the men and women whom produce the film must be made aware of what their fans like and dislike. Please, friend, don't take negative feedback on this film in a personal light. Your enthusiasm is wonderful, but you needn't let it land you in the midst of arguments. If you don't like what is being said, simply ignore it. Godzilla has remained strong for 60 years; the comments on this thread are hardly enough to threaten his future. We're all just expounding a bit over what we liked and disliked. :)

And yes, @Something Real got it right. He needs to understand when people say negative things about the film, its in the hope that the next sequel will not commit the same mistakes again. For @GorillaGodzilla to imply that we are lesser fans just because we do not put up Godzilla 2014 as high up the pedestal as he does is also inappropriate. 

His passion and love lies upon the art of the movie, while a number of people here look beyond just direction or storyline. We look for numbers to affirm us of that substance and whether it has been delivered to maximum effect. We look at the numbers to write history for Godzilla. As a Godzilla fan, wouldn't it be wonderful if Godzilla is up there making $700 - $800 million like those epic blockbusters? The fact that Gareth himself  is drawing inspiration from these epic movies is already testament that he too was hoping to make as much and create history. Unfortunately, its not quite getting there yet, and as fans of Godzilla, I feel we should all the more be concerned that Godzilla opened with such a promising start but staggered along the way. That's why we reflect upon those things and find issues that might have caused this.  

"Despite opening bigger than both Spider-Man 2 and X-Men, the fact remains that both these movies have already outpaced Godzilla by over $200 million each"

And I've already explained why this point is irrelevant. Godzilla had X-Men, which opened to $110 mil, to worry about a week after its release, whereas X-Men only had Malficient, which opened to about $70 mill, and TASM2 only had Neighbors, which opened to less than $50 mil. Moreover, X-Men has yet to be faced with any more big name blockbusters until T4 comes out next weekend, and TASM2, I've already shown you declined at around the same or even faster rate than this movie once it got hit with movies with big openings (Godzilla and X-Men) back-to-back much like this movie did each of the 2 weekends since it came out.

Also, user and critic scores of over 70% on IMDb, RT and MetaCritic (okay, it has a 62% critic rating on there, but a 72% positive user score) is NOT "average". Anyone who knows anything about the ratings system on those sites knows that that's considered good by those site's standards, not great, not average, but good. And don't tell me a low 7's is average because most movies on IMDb and RT wind up somewhere in the 6's, that's the norm for movie ratings.

*Domestically-speaking for TASM2, that is, sorry, it won't let me edit my own posts.

@KMANX89 -  (@Talisman, @ThePike, @KoldWarKid62, @TheGman123 @Something Real - I let you guys decide whether what I say now makes more sense than KManx89)

It appears to me Kmanx89 is nitpicking on certain movies for comparison and then drawing conclusions that my presentation of facts that Godzilla is underperforming in the box-office is false / irrelevant. 

First off, let me enlighten Kmanx89 a bit about the human behavior. If a movie is good, it is good. We do not use a bad excuse to say audiences are missing out on one movie just because there is strong competition. Do you skip watching X-Men or Neighbours altogether just because you wanted to catch Maleficent? If these movies are compelling enough and worth watching, why can't I catch all 3 of them on separate days? There's no rule that says you can only catch one movie among all of them. It's how well you sustain the interest of movie-goers and convince them to recommend the show to the people around them that keeps people coming. And official media outlet reviews aren't going to help either no matter how they praise a movie. Ultimately its still a matter of personal taste. We need only look at Marvel/DC's Green Lantern as an example, it opened strongly during the first weekend, and despite a lack of strong competition, it still flopped almost immediately because of negative reactions from the first wave of audiences.

Next, I think you completely missed out the point when one of our members here, @RatedRex, ( a marketing exec with a big movie studio for over 10 years) did a projection formula which movie studios typically used and did a calculation based on Godzilla's explosive debut. It was projected that Godzilla is looking at a $700 - $800 million earnings. I'm very sure Legendary Studios arrived with that projection similarly which led them to so quickly and confidently announce publicly 2 sequels for Godzilla. Fast forward today however, Godzilla is still hovering at $440 million combined 33 days on, and suddenly Gareth Edwards now says work on the sequel depends on China's reception. So what happened? Are they backtracking now because sales aren't matching projections? 

And next we look at the Amazing Spider-Man 2, which is your choice of comparison. If you realized, Spider-man 2 is not exactly doing any better in the US box-office and I have already estimated that Godzilla is sure to outpace Spider-man in the US box-office but is no match to Spidey when it comes to the foreign market. But right now, even Godzilla is struggling to inch its way slowly but surely to beat Spider-Man 2 in the US. For me, I calculate a movie's performance by looking at the amount of money each Cinema screening brings and how fast the movie is being taken out of cinemas. After all, if I am a cinema company and I'm screening a movie that little audiences are turning up for, what do I do? I take it out of screening of course.

Let us look at the US market and compare how Spider-Man, X-men and Godzilla are faring:

1. Amazing Spider-Man 2 (47-day debut)

(Initial) 4324 screens (To date) 682 screens (Reduction) 3642 = Average loss of 77 screens per day. 

2. X-Men Days of Future Past (26-day debut)

(Initial) 4001 screens (To date) 3042 screens (Reduction) 959 = Average loss of 37 screens per day. 

3. Godzilla (33-day debut)

(Initial) 3952 screens (To date) 2088 screens (Reduction) 959 = Average loss of 63 screens per day. 

You will see the co-relation between the loss of cinema-screenings per day with their sales numbers and the number of days they debut. Loss of screenings typically take place as the films debut lengthens and patrons gradually decrease naturally. Spider-man 2, taking the most loss of screens per day is now making $198.6 million to date. Comparatively, X-men which loses the least is already at $208.5 million. Godzilla, which is in between stands at $192.2 million at the US box office to date. But because it debuted 14 days after Spider-Man, and even so based on the lesser loss of screenings per day, Godzilla is estimated to outpace Spider-man eventually. So in conclusion, Spider-man 2 fares the worst amongst the three.

And now we look at the foreign box-office, where the sales numbers are a different story altogether. We need only look at the sales perfomance of Spider-man 2 and X-men against Godzilla's to know that Godzilla is indeed not performing despite opening bigger than the both of them overseas. Let us look at the latest figures below: 

1. Amazing Spider-Man 2

Foreign Total: $503.3 million. Combined Total: $701.9 million to date.

If I take out China and Japan: $577.5 million

2. X-Men Days of Future Past

Foreign Total: $461 million. Combined Total: $669.5 million to date.

If I take out China and Japan: $547.3 million

3. Godzilla 

Foreign Total: $461 million. Combined Total (Without China & Japan): $440.5 million to date.

As you can see here, I have excluded China and Japen from all 3 movies, and even so the difference is staggering. X-men still makes $547.3 million without Japan and China, while Spider-man makes $577.5 million here. 

Even when I exclude completely the 2 markets China and Japan for equal comparison, Spider-Man and X-men still outperform Godzilla by a staggering $137 million dollars apart. Could you figure out to me how this is so? Apparently, @KManX89 thinks that tight competition in the cinemas is affecting Godzilla. Could you explain to me how a difference in debut between X-men is costing Godzilla 137 million dollars here despite having a headstart? What happened to Godzilla's crushing debut? What happened to the sales momentum? Doesn't it sound more plausible now that negative impressions from the first wave of audiences are indeed discouraging people from catching the movie, hence the loss? 

Look, it obvious that we all have very strong and differing opinions on this movie. It’s been quite divisive. What’s also obvious is that no one is going to change anyone else’s opinion about it. Many of us here loved the movie, and I respect that, but there’s (I think), a fairly vocal minority, (myself included), who were disappointed with it. I wanted and expected to love it. To call us haters or trolls is nuts. We’re passionate about it because we’re G-Fans. If I didn’t give two shits about Godzilla I would not waste my time posting here! I honestly have better things to do. I’m sure Destroyah-X, RatedRex, ThePike, Talisman and others feel the exact same way. I think we feel cheated, and angry, but not because we’re haters! I vented quite a bit after ’98, and I’ve had to vent quite a bit the last month or so. People were excited for this. They went out in force to see it, but I think the honeymoon was over for a lot of people quickly, and word of mouth honestly hurt it. I rarely agree with mainstream critics, but I unfortunately had to in many cases on this one. Most negative/mediocre reviews were on the money, IMHO. I reviewed it here right after I saw it. I gave it a 3.5 and it was one of the lower grades given here. For me it wasn’t what it could/should have been, and it wasn’t what was advertised and marketed, so yeah I’m pissed. Almost $300 million has gone into making both American Godzillas and we’re still coming up short! WTF?? It’s not like we don’t have a template to go by, even loosely!

Anyway, no need to shout at each other, or insult anybody (you know who you are). Let’s agree to disagree. I think at the end of the day, everyone here is really on the same page. We all love Godzilla.

OK. I’ll shut up for now.

DESTROYAH-X,

Agreed. Also considering the hype and interest for Godzilla, there really was nothing that should have given too much competition this year. It smashed the box office initially. That pattern seemed to repeat in many cases.

All one has to do is look at the word of mouth Godzilla got, to realize that something was seriously wrong. The movie was highly divisive. It was a very polarizing movie. Extreme points of view on both sides.

The box office is not lying. Its true that many films had lost ground quickly, but in certain cases movies passed Godzilla even though starting out weaker.

Godzilla was the most anticipated film this year BAR NONE.

So reasons and excuses for its huge drop off are just that..excuses.

The real reason is that people just didn't like what they got. They teased the Mutos in the trailers, and indeed the focus was more on them in the movie. Godzilla who was not teased in the trailers, became elusive and hidden in the movie.

Sorry, I think it obvious that such is a recipe for "disaster" and no pun intended.