Apes overtake the box office as Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire tramples Monkey Man with $31 million

The MonsterVerse movies holds the top spot for the second week in a row.

It’s primate v.s. primate at this weekend’s box office — and while Dev Patel’s Monkey Man came out swinging, it wasn’t enough to unseat the king. 

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire took the No. 1 spot for the second week in a row, trampling Monkey Man and fellow newcomer The First Omen beneath its kaiju feet. Last week, the fifth film in the MonsterVerse franchise exceeded expectations with an $80 million premiere and this week, Comscore reports the film has grossed an additional $31 million in domestic territories alone. While the domestic total now sits at $135 million, globally the total gross is a whopping $361 million.

The New Empire is a followup to 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong, this time pitting the two behemoths against a colossal undiscovered threat that puts the survival of humanity at risk. Directed by Adam Wingard, the movie stars Rebecca Hall, Dan Stevens, and Brian Tyree Henry.

Swinging into second place, Patel makes his directorial debut with the brutal action-thriller, Monkey Man. After a decade of trying to bring this film to fruition, the filmmaker finally gets to celebrate its arrival in theaters. The movie arrived to $10.1 million domestically and internationally, earned $2.6 million, for a global total of $12.7 million.

This is especially exciting given Monkey Man was once destined to languish on Netflix until Jordan Peele signed on as producer and pushed for a theatrical release through Universal Pictures. 

“It’s like that scene in Pretty Woman,” Patel told Entertainment Weekly of Peele’s well-timed rescue. “I remember when we got dropped by our studio. You know when she goes in with the credit card at the end, back into the store? It was like that moment. It’s like he was Richard Gere, I’m Julia Roberts, and I’ve got his Amex.”

Patel stars as the film’s titular Monkey Man, a rage-filled man who dons a gorilla mask to make a living in an underground fight club.

Elsewhere, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire continued its fall, adding only $9 million to its domestic total of $88 million. The sequel to 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife and the fifth film in the Ghostbusters franchise now boasts a global total of $138 million.

The First Omen, a chilling prequel to the 1976 horror classic The Omen, brought sinister nuns back to the box office only two weeks after Immaculate premiered. With a slightly splashier debut than its bloody competitor, the flick arrived to $8 million domestically, plus another $9.1 million abroad. The film came in fourth place with a global total of $17.4 million.

Rounding out the top five is Kung Fu Panda 4, which added another $7.8 million to its domestic total of $166 million. The fourth film in the animated franchise is taking theaters around the world by storm, with a global total of over $410 million.

Entertainment Weekly