Do you think Godzilla 2014 will reach $500M at Box Office before TRANSFORMERS aoe does?

I hope it will, But it still needs 18 million. Transformers does seem to have plummeted, But i hope Godzilla can make it there be for TF does.

I hope it will, But it still needs 18 million. Transformers does seem to have plummeted, But i hope Godzilla can make it there be for TF does.

Hmm I dunno but does it even matter who reaches $500 million first? It disappoints me that Godzilla's still struggling to make $200 million in the US with just 750 screens left showing the movie, while in China it's hovering at $78 million and still unsure if it would match Pacific Rim's $114 million. The $200 million earned in the US still can't beat Godzilla 1998's $231 million. 

While Transformers Age of Extinction took just four days to earn over $400 million. My guess is Transformers will hit past $500 million after this weekend's sales tally, and at the rate Godzilla is progressing, its unlikely to hit $500m first. 

I doubt Godzilla will get $500 million at all honestly. 

I blame the marketing team.

It should when it is all over with. :)

@Nerdybandgeeks - It will after factoring in Japan. And I have dropped my estimates even further down to less than $540 million from the maximum estimate of $570 million recently. 

The latest Shocker is Godzilla has plunged further in the US and brought in just $69,095 from the latest single-day tally, which is lower than Spider-man 2's $76,107 despite Spidey being out in cinemas for over 2 months already and only showing in 289 screens compared to Godzilla's 750. At this rate if it earns between $60k - $100k per day, it will take another 2-3 weeks to hit $200m. 

@destroyah-x,

Hello and how are you? :)

@BigBadBen - Hey bud, Im good. How's work on that fantastic graphic novel of yours? :) 

Anyways is it just me or am I noticing less of the usual folks' names popping up in the forum? I think @Something_Real's been missing in action haha. Feels weird for me :P 

@destroyah-x,

The graphic novel is going great here is the link to the 3rd teasers i posted the other day.

http://www.godzilla-movies.com/community/forums/topic/36031

I would love to hear your comments on it, and yeah the godzilla forums are going dead looks like there hasn't been too much going on here as far as i can tell, it's like everyone just left for some odd reason. :P

@BigBadBen - that's some neat work you've done so far, but I do have a concern though. Since it's done on scrapbook paper, do you have intentions to preserve your works as the drawings may wear out over time or are you just drawing these for the moment and think about the rest later?

And I dun think people abandoned the forum altogether, perhaps its just that there isn't much news to report lately since the sequel is still quite some time away. I think they are just browsing through but not logging on to add any comments. I guess maybe if people could contribute more thought-provoking thread topics, then perhaps these folks might just feel the need to lend their views.  

@destroyah-x,

That is what protectors are for i have all of my drawings in protective sleeves in one single binder and i wouldn't worry about them getting scraped or even torn up plus i always make extras just incase, thanks for your comments as well. :)

And yeah i agree since the movie released things dropped but as soon as new news pops up on the sequal this place will go berserk. :)

@destroyah-x,

Also i agree with what you said on another thread about there being memorable people here, just out of curiousity am i one of those? :)

Got to go for now i will see you later. :)

I don't think any of this really matters at this point. Godzilla will finish around $500 million+ and that's perfectly fine. The movie was successful, made profit, Legendary's cited to be happy with it and that's more than we can ask for a North American franchise starter with material that was considered "poison" 16 years ago and dead in the water 10 years ago.

The movie was never going to hit $700 million+. Whatever flaws either in the movie or the marketing, Legendary can learn from in the future. The good news is the franchise is alive and kicking which is more than can be said for its status in the States immediately post-1998.

I think mediocre word of mouth hurt this plain and simple. As it is, it's going to make $500 million or damn close to it. I think that's a fairly safe bet. I think had this movie had more of what I and a lot of other people wanted to see, it absolutely would have made more. Had it been more the movie that was marketed and sold to the public, I think it would have made more. How much more, who knows? I'm a lifelong Godzilla fan (51 years), and I couldn't strongly recommend it to anyone. My best recommendation was "It's worth seeing on a big screen." Not exactly a ringing endorsement. I planned on seeing it 2 or 3 times. I saw it once. If there are 100, 1000, 10,000 other people out there who feel like that, their opinions are going to carry weight to others who ask about it and may be on the fence about seeing it.

GMan's right in that it doesn't matter. It has made money, and they are moving ahead with a sequel or two. He does say Legendary is happy with it although I've been looking and haven't seen a peep in weeks from anyone regarding its reception. I know they were thrilled opening weekend, as they should be, but pretty much since that first week, nothing.

He's also right that it has been revitalized. I'm hoping I can get the Godzilla movie I was looking for the second time around.

^Legendary did make a comment both the first and second weeks. Someone posted the reports on another forum, but I'm having a hard time finding them. Legendary was pleased with both weeks. That's the gist of it.

Typically no one cares to interview the crew and producers after a movie is released unless there's a very, very major circumstance. (Typically meaning the movie has to bomb...)

@Gman2887 - Sorry to say this, but you are beginning to sound like one of those who chose to put blinders on, defending this movie's takings while completely ignoring the glaring numbers that do the talking. Is there a reason why you have stopped updating us folks about the Box Office numbers lately, or is it because they aren't too flattery isn't it?

Common sense would tell us that from a public relations standpoint, of course Legendary would say they are happy with what they've got so far. Would they publicly admit their failures to deter other viewers who have yet to catch Godzilla 2014 in China or even Japan? The first week marked a great opening with a lot of promise for the movie, but we have to admit, the later part simply fizzled and went downhill, and instead of accepting the movie's drawbacks, you shift the blame to movies like the Transformers Age of Extinction even when this movie opened more than 1 month after Godzilla's debut. 

What Godzilla 2014 only achieved during the marketing stage was the fact that it offered the promise of an all-new Reboot which everyone's been waiting for, hence the huge reception and piqued interest in the movie. To me, it had it's chance like Godzilla 1998 did, but it doesn't mean G14 succeeded in captivating the mainstream audience. It merely captivated the fanboys who were displeased with G98 more so than the general audience, but it doesn't mean its a success.

I think this is the distinction you need to be able to make here. The general audience are not like us Godzilla fans, they just want to catch a good movie. Period. We openly blasted Godzilla 1998 because we didn't like what we see, and despite the numbers, Roland Emmerich didn't dare risk a sequel because it would have been disastrous. 

Likewise for Godzilla 2014, we fans love this new take on Godzilla, but when support from the general audience translates to sales numbers that can't even beat what the 1998 version achieved, that speaks a lot of volumes and demands some reflection from the people at Legendary. 

Of course, since a sequel is gonna go ahead irregardless, segments of people here in this forum have already cautioned repeatedly, if Legendary continues with their choice of Gareth Edwards to helm the sequel, they are in for a disaster. 

And lastly, I have noticed at least twice or thrice, you kept bringing about the intervew Gareth did with the Chinese media, and also some points to defend Godzilla's box-office numbers. I do intend to provide a point-to-point response to your arguments that my view of G14's failure to captivate the mainstream audience is very much justified. Or I might post a thread topic on this subject to spur discussions from many folks in this forum who seem to have all gone missing in action lately. Do look out for it thanks. :)

Destroyah-X,

As lovely as your wall of text is, your assumption of blinders is returned in kind with my assumption of your need to not consider other obstacles the movie had. I think your disdain for me defending Godzilla's box office results is rather petty though. Much as you have pointed out, to the point of nausea, your viewpoint of its failings, to call me out, or anyone for that matter, for defending the film is quite opaque on your part. As if one is afraid of a solid counter argument, which admittedly, you really haven't had around these parts.

As for the box office thread, quite frankly I stopped updating the box office because I lost interest and I really don't think it matters anymore. I will very much update it. The last update was June 16. If someone were to ask me to do so, I'd be more than happy. But no one, including yourself, has done so. Thus I don't feel the need to. In the meantime Godzilla's moved to dollar theaters and is making peanuts. The numbers still say it's a success, more-so than other franchises in some cases. Spinning it with percentages does worlds indeed, but at the end of the day people are going to look at the score not the game.

As for shifting blame, I've yet to hear how I'm wrong. Transformers was designed to dominate the Chinese box office and Pacific Rim didn't have that kind of competition last year. (It was the competition in China.) Simple as that. (Although Transformers did fall 75% this past Friday. But I suppose it's still a success and Godzilla's a failure because... well because, right?)

On the general audience, a fellow fan on another forum put it best, "Reception is mixed, but leaning more positive." Whoever had written the initial wikipedia article for the film had something similar. However, for whatever reason, it has since been updated in an even more positive light. I agree it didn't captivate audiences in a massive sense, but nor did they hate it either. On personal accounts, for what it's worth, I've heard very little criticism. Most of my personal friends or co-workers, non-fans all around, enjoy it.

It's funny you bring up the fans however, because it's a handful of fans, such as yourself, that I've seen spending so much time on whether or not it was a hit with the audience. Analysts have closed the book on it with, "people like it, but its iffy" and moved on. For whatever reason some fans, like you, seem hellbent on overthinking the subject and refuse to simply let things play out without feeling hot under the collar when you scan the numbers. Is it a hobby? Or is there some sort of goal here? Do you feel it's your mission to convince the fandom it wasn't a hit for some reason?

Indeed Edwards has improvements to make. There's no doubt about it, but the improvements should be to make a better movie. Not simply appeal to a large audience. (That doesn't always go hand-in-hand.) In truth, I'd be happier if the movie stuck to certain guns to make a stronger film at the cost of boxoffice promise than compromise intrgrity for more money. You seem like you're more interested in the latter, however. If true, you may get your wish. I have a feeling Legendary Pictures will be putting mandatory requests on both del Toro and Edwards for the upcoming Pacific Rim and Godzilla sequels.

Now that I've been dragged into constructing my own text-wall, I hope you enjoy doing a point-to-point response to my posts, but I much rather wish you had done it when I posted the points individually. I continue to lose interest in this topic and find it becomes less relevant by the day. Enjoy writing it. I can't promise I'll take the time to read another wall of text, however.

" :) "

@Gman2887 -

You see, when you said in your last sentence that you cant promise to read my 'wall of text', aren't you already choosing to put a blinder over what others have to say? :)

For me, I've read what you had to say each time, and I saw it fit to respond because I'm not sure if you realized, that there are some arguments you made that do not make complete sense at all? I'm not gonna do a point-to-point response here, but I'll just pick out some statements you made. 

In the interview with Tull, you said he was looking at a figure starting from 4xx to kickstart a sequel. Have you taken his words out of context yourself or misread Tull's statements? I suggest you go through the interview again.

In it, the interviewer said that he was not going to ask Legendary about a sequel, but will just get down to the basic numbers. Tull responded that they were looking at a figure with at least a 4 in front of it globally. To which, the interviewer popped a further question asking so if it hits somewhere at the 5-6, we are talking about the 'S' word? 

The first thing you got incorrect was the assumption that Tull was looking for a 4xx million figure in overall sales. He was in fact referring to $400 millon upwards in the worldwide market (Minus Domestic Box Office) to be in a comfortable position. That's what he literally meant when he said 'Globally'. $400 million in combined box office sales completely doesn't make sense, considering the fact that it already requires $380 million for Legendary to break-even. Has it ever occurred to you how a sales figure of $400+ million, which translates to a tiny figure of less than $20 - $50 million in profits would ever be considered a success to Legendary, let alone consider it worthy of a sequel? Or does it make more sense when you combine $400 million global sales with a domestic box office earning of say, $200 million, and we are looking at a $600 million figure to justify the sequel? 

The other thing is when you cherry-picked interviews like what Gareth did with China and what Tull said to the media to justify the movie being in a comfortable position. I think you need to realize too that the interviews you picked were those that were made prior to Godzilla's screening and are not reflective of the latest sentiments. 

And btw, Gareth didn't just do interviews with one media outlet in China, he did this with a few of them, and I don't think the Chinese media outlets are taking any of his words out of context when he did indeed remark to an interviewer one day after the screening of Godzilla in China that they are looking at the sales performance to determine how soon they would kickstart the project on the sequel. That sounds like a perfectly reasonable and sane statement Gareth would make as far as I know. Even any other person would make such a statement. If Godzilla makes $80 million in China, would they be as enthusiastic? Or would they jump quicker into making the sequel if it makes $200 million in China? That makes perfect sense, its all about the money of course. 

And talking about competition. The movie industry doesn't work like the mobile phone industry where brands are competing for the same pie and pool of consumers. Consumers do not pick between 3 movies and choose to go for only one. If a movie is good enough they simply go for all 3 on different days. Do I pick which movies I want to watch based on competition? Do I care? Likewise do the rest of consumers care too? Based on your logic, if making blockbuster figures is as easy as shelving dates and going up against the 'right' competition, then everybody would be choosing the best dates to ensure they hit $600-$700 million in sales. That sounds easy, but sadly consumer behavior and tastes don't work that way. Movies like Avatar has already busted this myth that competition affects sales momentums. Despite being a movie with unknown origins, Avatar sandwiched itself into the holiday season that saw intense competition from lots of movie releases, but it held strong at the #1 spot at the box-office not just for 1-2 weeks but for 2 months consecutively, and went on to earn $700 million in the US box office alone. So it all comes down to audience appeal, not competition. And I dun think analysts are done with Godzilla 2014, its just that it hasn't reached the end of its debut for them to formulate their conclusions.

And last, but not least, do you know what made Legendary decide to quickly announce 2 sequels for Godzilla in just the first week of its debut? Not the foregone conclusion that it would make $400-$500 million that you might choose to believe, but it's the explosive $93 million domestic box office opening, along with big openings worldwide that prompted them to do so. Why? 

Simple. - They based it on projections. Like what one of the members here @RatedRex (a marketing exec at a major movie studio for over 12 years) pointed out, studios have their ways of calculating projections taking into account competition and percentile decreases. Based on Godzilla's $93 million opening in the US and strong opening worldwide, he said we are looking at a figure of $600 - $700 million in overall sales based on gradual sales momentum. And he is right. And that's exactly what Legendary studios projected internally too, which far exceeded their expectations, and needless to say. it quickly prompted them to announce 2 sequels in just the first week of Godzilla's debut because they thought they had a strong momentum. Of course, they weren't prepared for what came later after the 2nd week, which is why I said Legendary was counting their chickens before they hatched. 

How do we know that? We simply have to look at the track record of all movies which opened at $90 million. Typically, a $90 million box office opening would garner a domestic projection of $230 million, and not surprisingly, almost all movies that opened in this fashion went on to hit the projections both Domestic and Worldwide. But if a movie opens this big only to stray far away from projections, something's not right. Let's take a look at the list: 

1. Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides 

Opening ($90.1M)  Domestic ($241M) Combined ($1.04B)

2. The Maxtrix Reloaded

Opening (91.7M)  Domestic ($281.5M) Combined ($742M)

3. Fast & Furious 6 

Opening ($97.7M) Domestic ($238M) Combined ($748M)

4. Captain America Winter Soldier

Opening ($95M) Domestic ($257.2M) Combined ($711.2M)

5. The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Opening ($91.6M) Domestic ($200.3M)  Combined ($704M)

6. X-Men Days of Future Past 

Opening (90.8M)  Domestic ($225.7M to date) Combined ($715.7M to date)

7. Godzilla 2014 

Opening ($93M) Domestic ($197M to date) Combined ($488M to date) 

I know how much people like to cherry-pick movies for comparison, so why not let's compare with movies of the same size then? Do you see what's wrong here? Godzilla 2014 belongs to the all-time $90M opening league of movies, and I have not even brought in the rest of the movies in the $90M opening list, which all ended between $580M to over $700M in earnings by the way. And Legendary Studios got bullish about the sequel in the first week, because all movies that opened at $90 million typically ended with huge earnings, and Godzilla appeared to be following that trend. Even though Spider-Man 2, like Godzilla 2014, failed to hit the projected targets for the US Box-office, at least Spidey still managed a $700M in overall sales.

Which makes Godzilla 2014 currently the worst-performing movie of all time both in domestic and worldwide sales in its $90M opener category. And I'm surprised you actually think 'that's normal'.

Could you, in all your wisdom provide me a reason how the competition is dragging Godzilla 2014 down by this much such that it is way underperforming what other movies have achieved with the same opening figures? Apparently this "competition" phenomenon is not affecting the other movies that opened at $90M whether they are sequels or non-sequels, or reboots or non-reboots. And if Godzilla cannot hold out against the competition from other movies, something must have gone wrong with the appeal of this movie isn't it? Is it also because the first waves of audiences are not recommending the movie well enough to others around them? Because either way whichever reason one can think of, it still doesn't detract from one fact that's taking place here. Let's face it - Godzilla opened big only to fizzle out. And it is Underperforming. 

I have a feeling it might. Even if it doesn't beat Transformer 4 to the $500M spot, it doesn't matter. I am sure Godzilla will finish with a total of around $600M considering it hasn't even been released in Japan yet. Oh and by the way, I watched Transformers 4 a few days ago and it SUCKED. For such a crappy movie, it sure as hell is making a lot of money at the Box Office.

Well after staring into what I thought was the sun there, I'll try to do the unthinkable and keep this short simply to be courteous.

First is that you assume that Tull is speaking of boxoffice numbers "minus the domestic figure". Where does he specifically say that? "Global" sounds pretty universal and "worldwide" (as said here) is the same thing. I think you're the only one infering otherwise. Even the guys over at Monster Zero who are spending hours on the same topic you are understand this. It's a good spin though.

As for the stuff in between, indeed Godzilla did worse. And indeed it's the only non-sequel you listed. Tull even admitted it was difficult to begin a franchise and understands the issues with it. Why not compare it to other franchise starters/reboots? And from Legendary no less to get an idea of what they think flies? Pacific Rim? Batman Begins? Man of Steel? Clash of the Titans? Even with its outstanding opening I was never under the assumption that Godzilla was going to break $550 million. The competition was too heavy. Plain and simple.

Regarding the competition, how did it not drag Godzilla down? I've yet to hear this addressed. You have X-Men, an established franchise, and recently revitilized, coming in with its seventh film and the novelty of the original cast returning. You have Transformers which is designed more to be a product than a film which sells and was specifically made to dominate China-- a market that typically only allows up to 3-4 weeks for a foreign films', depending on numbers. I'm also curious as to why it was so important for Godzilla to hit Pacific Rim's number in China. I don't think of Pacific Rim the rule, but rather the exception. (Which is true in a lot of cases for that film.) Could it be Pacific Rim was just more appealing to the Chinese market? Most certainly.

That was still about a paragraph longer than I wanted it to be.