Now that the dust has settled somewhat on Godzilla’s opening weekend, everyone knew it was going to open big, the question was how big? The monster opening weekend for the Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. big budget film proved to be more than expected with a $93 million domestic haul and $103 million international haul. With those kind of numbers, Legendary’s Thomas Tull has revealed that a sequel will indeed be developed. Read on for more details.
Deadline is reporting, After opening to $103M internationally — the biggest opening of 2014 so far — and grossing $93M domestic stateside this weekend, it should come as no surprise that Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros.‘ are already developing a sequel to the monster hit. It was confirmed to Deadline this morning that a Godzilla sequel is underway. The beast is currently stomping across international markets to take No. 1 spots in most territories.
The picture was directed by Gareth Edwards, a young British director who grew up on Star Wars and Steven Spielberg films. Godzilla has been made into features before over its 60-year history. The first being in 1954 when the Toho character appeared to be nothing more than a man in a rubber suit, but still fascinated both Japanese and American audiences. It was also made into a film in 1998 by Dean Devlin and director Roland Emmerich but had no where near the opening of this current one. In 1998, the film which starred Matthew Broderick, opened to $44M and went onto gross $136.3M. Worldwide, it grossed $379M. This one could double that.
Edwards has talked about what he would do with a sequel, saying he would use the same kind of restraint that he did for this one. He learned well from watching Spielberg films as the monster was only talked about for the first part of this film. And, of course, there were those reaction shots that added to the suspense. Edwards was given the chance by Legendary’s Thomas Tull who put faith in him to pull this off, having previously done Monsters which only grossed $2.6M in total. Tull has played coy in the media on the subject of a sequel, waiting for Godzilla‘s monster opening to confirm sequel plans. As Dan Fellman (WBros. head of domestic distribution) pointed out, they made more in one night (probably one late night run at 7 PM) than Edwards’ movie did in its entire run. Legendary’s Jon Jashni developed this along with Brian Rogers and Mary Parent. Max Borenstein scripted from a story by David Callaham. Alex Garcia at Legendary was instrumental in the development of this film working, closely with both the director and writer.
Source: Deadline
