Box Office Report: Dev Patel. That's the Headline

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | April 8, 2024 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | April 8, 2024 |

Hollywood has never been as adept at making Godzilla movies as their Japanese predecessors. The reviews have never leveled up to their overseas brethren. Just look at the lavish praise that Godzilla Minus One received (alongside its Oscar.) That’s not to say that the Americanized monsters aren’t pulling their weight. Sometimes, we just want to watch big lizards and apes punch one another and their common enemies.

So, it’s no surprise that, in its second week of release, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire stayed in the top spot. It’s now comfortably grossed $135 million domestically. Its worldwide gross is at $361,037,630, which makes it the sixth highest-grossing movie of 2024 so far. Suck it, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and something called Boonie Bears: Time Twist.

Dev Patel’s Monkey Man was initially destined for a Netflix release, but Jordan Peele lobbied hard for a studio to pick it up for a theatrical run. Universal put down a reported $10 million for those rights, and in its opening weekend, it made $10 million domestically. That bet paid off. That’s still pretty soft, overall, but it remains a big victory for Patel, who made his directorial debut here.

At number four is The First Omen, a prequel to the legendary horror series. Despite receiving pretty good reviews, certainly far better than some recent franchise horror reboots, audiences were lukewarm. It only earned $8.63 million from 3,375 theatres. That’s about $700k less than Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire in its third week (and that movie has yet to cross $90 million in the US.)

Someone Like You is a Christian romantic drama adapted from a novel by Karen Kingsbury. She’s basically one of the big queens of what’s known as inspirational romance (read: Christian stuff), and Fathom Events has doubled down hard on adapting her work. There’s a TV series coming soon based on one of her bigger series. This film made just over $3 million from 1,800 theatres nationwide.

In limited release news: the romantic drama (Jesus-free) The Beast made $48,000 from four locations, while the Macedonian drama Housekeeping for Beginners brought in $45,000, also from four theatres.

This coming week sees the release of Alex Garland’s dystopian drama Civil War, a remake of Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, and horror film Sting.

You can check out the rest of the weekend box office here.