Box Office: Will “Godzilla” devour all before him?

fiatSo as I said in my review, “Godzilla” is very kid friendly. It plays to me like a lot of the “Godzilla’s our friend” kid-friendly movies in this long running franchise,a “Godzilla vs. Mothra” sort of outing, without any laughs, intentional or otherwise. Those Godzilla Fiat commercials have more wit.

The violence isn’t graphic or bloody, also kid-friendly.

And a kid-friendly rating should give it a hand at the box office, exposing it to a wider audience. Will the fanboys, who prefer dark R-rated essays in ultra-violence, line up? One audience often means you sacrifice another in getting it.

Box Office Guru says $68 million, a pretty healthy opening, but not in the “Spider-Man” ballpark. Not at all.

Reviews, which were of the fanboys wetting their pants variety on Monday, have cooled off considerably by week’s end. Still well into positive territory, but my hate mail has tapered off. Reviews won’t hurt it.

Box Office Mojo says $70, and that it will “crush” numbers like the $338 million “World War Z” made overseas.

I think it could get easily into the $70s. It’s on nearly 4,000 screens, in 3D.

But it’s an inferior movie and for that reason alone I figure it won’t do nearly as well next weekend, though worldwide, you never know.

“Million Dollar Arm” is two hours of your life Jon Hamm will never, ever give back. Disney is banking on this sticking around after doing low-teens this weekend. That may be a stretch.

I see it doing maybe $12 this weekend. Weak reviews won’t help. Guru says $14, Mojo echoes that.

“Spider-Man” should plummet into the low $teens, “Neighbors” should hold in the $25-30 million range.

 

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About Roger Moore

Movie Critic, formerly with McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Orlando Sentinel, published in Spin Magazine, The World and now published here, Orlando Magazine, Autoweek Magazine
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