‘Godzilla’ vs. T. Rex

“Godzilla” opened like a monster this week, but it looks doubtful whether the highly hyped beast will smash the box-office records set last year by another monster movie, “The Lost World.”

In its first 29 hours in theaters “Godzilla” took in $12.5 million, setting the stage for a first week that will undoubtedly be among the top box-office debuts of all time.

“Godzilla” began previews at 7 p.m. Tuesday in advance of its official Wednesday opening--all told, it’s playing on more than 7,200 screens--and according to Jeff Blake, Sony’s theatrical distribution head, ate up about 65% of all ticket sales. Preview night was about $4.1 million and opening day was $8.5 million.

But while that’s impressive, “Godzilla” has little chance of besting last year’s record-breaking $90-million four-day debut of “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” (almost $93 million when its Thursday night preview is factored in) in fewer theaters.

But “Lost World” was a sequel to what was then the world’s top-grossing movie ever, “Jurassic Park” (“Titanic” supplanted it this year). Sequels usually start out bigger and taper off more quickly. (It could be argued that “Godzilla” is hardly an unknown quantity with more than 20 low-budget appearances on screen since the 1950s. At the very least, “Godzilla” is a remake.)

Officially, the six-day record is held by “Independence Day “ with $96 million. The U.S. military vs. space invaders movie opened last year for the July 4 holiday. But that was in the middle of summer when the under-21 audience is out of school--the audience for which these films are made.

Most of “Godzilla’s” business so far has been from ticket buyers who are older than 21, according to Blake. Most of its potential audience won’t show up until Friday night, by which time Blake expects to have $20 million going into the lucrative long weekend.

More significantly, “Godzilla” did slightly better than the $11.7 million or so recorded in the same Tuesday-Wednesday before Memorial Day weekend in 1996 by “Mission: Impossible,” though that movie opened in 300 fewer theaters. “Mission: Impossible” went on to gross $75 million in its first six days.

But as Paul Dergarabedian of the box-office tracking service Exhibitor Relations points out, “Mission” played to a much more adult audience. He expects “Godzilla’s” weekend numbers to spike more significantly. So “Godzilla” should do better than “Mission’s” four-day weekend of $56.8 million.

With “Godzilla’s” official cost of $120 million, the special-effects spectacular, which is the first part of a planned trilogy, is being carefully scrutinized as studios reassess changing audience tastes and gargantuan special-effects budgets. At some point, audience appetite for monsters and disasters will begin to wane. The studios would like to know that before it’s too late.

“Godzilla” is the second disaster movie to open this month. In early May it was a comet that terrorized New York City in “Deep Impact.” That film gathered $74 million in its first 10 days, but is expected to flame out somewhere around $100 million to $125 million, which means foreign ticket sales will have to be strong for it to recoup its investment. (“Armageddon,” with a similar theme to “Deep Impact” and a bigger budget than “Godzilla,” will go under the microscope when it arrives for the huge Fourth of July weekend.)

Regardless, “Godzilla” is expected to do far better than “Deep Impact.” And Memorial Day business should be very strong. The question will be how big is big enough for a film whose advertising campaign boasts: “Size Matters.”