Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire is currently overperforming box office expectations, a sign that audiences are plenty interested non-superhero blockbusters when it comes to the post-COVID return to theaters. Or they may even enjoy them more now.
The end result of Gozilla X Kong is a film that has massively divided critics and audiences, with audience scores that are genuinely some of the best for a blockbuster in recent memory.
Here’s how the entire Monsterverse stacks up in terms of critic versus audience opinion:
- Godzilla (2014) – 76% critics, 66% audience
- Kong: Skull Island (2017) – 76% critics, 69% audience
- Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) – 42% critics, 83% audience
- Godzilla Vs. Kong (2021) – 76% critics, 91% audience
- Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024) – 56% critics, 92% audience
It’s kind of a fascinating breakdown. The first two movies in the franchise, the standalones, reviewed better with critics than fans who were not yet convinced, but after that? It’s the opposite. Technically, Godzilla: King of the Monsters has the highest critic/fan split, but after that, audience scores really hit the ceiling with the Gozilla/Kong combo movies both getting over a 91%. Now, Godzilla X Kong has a 36% difference between critics and audiences and the series highest audience score yet.
I previously broke down audience scores of the MCU over time, and with these numbers, Godzilla X Kong’s 92% is either behind or tied with MCU features like Spider-Man No Way Home/Far From Home, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 and 3, Shang Chi and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It’s above everything else, the other 25+.
This is deeply impressive for a somewhat uneven franchise that seems to now be really finding its stride with audiences, if not critics. And of course it’s wild to see the staying power of both Godzilla and Kong as cinematic figures of myth when they originally debuted onscreen in 1954 and 1933 respectively. Kong is approaching his hundredth birthday and still riding the top of the box office. That’s a powerful monkey.
This performance will no doubt greenlight further adventures of Godzilla and Kong. I wonder what it will do for the prospects of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season 2 on Apple, which hasn’t yet been renewed. I do hope they can do more of that, but we’ll see.
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