Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters Box Office Watch

I think it's also worth noting the month of the release. I'm not sure how box office trends work in Japan, but with Shin Godzilla being released in July and Monster Planet in November, I'm sure that had an effect on ticket sales. I think Toho is expecting to make their money from the Netflix release.

November is not a great month for Japanese box office, it's true. But December is usually a great month. It could be considered close enough to make much of its ground there.

I'm don't want to make too many excuses for it either. But I think the fact it had around 290 less theaters than most major releases hurt it the most. I'd be surprised if this hit $5 million.

I'm just curious what the budget for the film was and what they're getting from their Netflix deal.

Is an update (especially tickets sold) coming this week?

Octopus,
Soon!

UPDATE (11/28/17):
World of KJ translated the box office report from Kogyotsushin--Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters faced a harsh drop to #5 in its second week, making $425,000 for Saturday and Sunday. Its total is now at $2.5 Million and it's expected to finish below $5 Million. It's admissions are an estimated 137,000 tickets.

Again, it doesn't appear that Toho intended for this to be a major release given its number of theaters. But anything under $10 Million is pretty disappointing and the film will potentially sell the least amount of tickets in the series' history.

It seems king of strange to not release a movie they produced in all these theaters they own in the first place. Why wouldn't they just release it everywhere they can? At least the 2 other sequels are still announced. No matter what we are getting 2 more Godzilla movies after wards despite the low numbers.

Just because it did bad with ticket sales doesn't mean the film is bad.

Yikes that’s a harsh drop. Let’s hope the Netflix deal is able to make up for this. I still am very curious what the budget for the movie was. Will this affect how the next two films are released? If this one fails to gain any steam, I wouldn’t be surprised if the sequels go straight to streaming.

Well, if many of those theaters had already booked other movies further in advance then they can't replace them with Planet of the Monsters for contractual reasons--And my theory is that the theatrical release was a late decision.

This is just me hypothesizing, but I'm pretty sure the anime trilogy was produced all as one project--It was initially supposed to be a TV series anyway, so that would make sense. Planet of the Monsters opened in 158 theaters. That's barely a wide release as most blockbusters in Japan are released in about 450 theaters. (Shin Godzilla opened in 448.) So it looks like they never intended for this to be a major blockbuster. The real takeway from this is that Toho probably saw the theatrical release as an afterthought compared to the Netflix release.

I have little to nothing to base this on, but I think Toho has probably already made their money back (or close to it) for the entire trilogy through the world wide Netflix deal. Toho is not cheap when it comes to distributing Godzilla and a deal with Netflix for every territory is bound to be expensive. So the domestic theatrical release could merely be an icing-on-the cake scenario.

Still, without any sort of context or background it looks like a very disappointing release on paper--And it is. Toho should have found a way to go all-out in my opinion, especially considering animated features usually do better in Japan.

Another part of me wonders if the contract with Legendary hinders them from making it too wide of release, since Godzilla 2 is in post-production. But I have nothing to go on for that theory either.

The long game as far as budget is concerned was also something I was curious about. I imagine that since most of the models for characters/monsters have already been made, the budget for the next film will be considerably smaller since half of the work is already done as far as making the models and animations. 

I would guess that this movies theatrical release was meant to offset any sort of cost from changing the entire production from a television series to a trilogy. Or Toho knew that along with Netflix, they could get away with a limited theatrical release.

That would actually make a lot of sense that the deal with Legendary makes it difficult for Toho to make the release wider. That may be why they decided to go with Netflix in the first place. 

I think Netflix will make up for this bad box office numbers. Unless the douchebags at the FCC get their way with stabbing away at net neutrality. hopefully that never happens and we still have Netflix in this mix.

I still think Toho's already made up whatever budget this project had simply through making a worldwide deal with Netflix. That just can't be a cheap deal, especially if the movie is going to be streamed in every territory.

Netflix is deploying an $8 billion programming plan next year and Godzilla is one of 30 anime projects (read: projects not simply movies) involved. Do you really think Toho isn't going to milk whatever cut of that they can?

Thank you for the updates on this.

UPDATE (12/04/17):
Once again World of KJ, via Kogyotsushin, reports that Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters has fallen from #5 to #7 in its third weekend. It was originally predicted to fall to #9. The movie fell 45% from its second weekend, with just $228,000 over the third. Its current total is now $3 Million with an estimated attendance of 164,300.

Unless its legs are unusually strong in the next few weeks, it may struggle to even hit $4 Million at this point.

Yikes. I guess the goodwill from Shin Godzilla did not carry over to this one. I know a lot of factors contributed to the low numbers, but I think people in Japan just weren't interested in an anime Godzilla film. At least not one so soon after Shin, people would've found a way to see it if they really wanted to by this point. 

I imagine some are just waiting to watch it on Netflix.

I mean, there are soo many movies I wanted to see in theaters, but knowing they will be ready to rent in 3 or 4 months I usually just wait to see them in that way. there are only soo many movies I will go out and see in theaters. this would have been one, but since Netflix will have it at the comfort of my TV and its free already to watch, I can understand about waiting to see a movie like this.

Wow this is going to be the least attended film in the series. As a Godzilla fan since 1978 even I wasn't interested ins seeing this so I'm not surprised. Toho would have been better off putting this straight to video or direct TV.

Is an update coming?

Yes, but it's completely fallen out of the top 10 and will be pulled from theaters soon. I'm currently compiling as much info as I can. This will likely be the last update.

Hopefully we will get an update on when this will come to Netflix since it's close to being done with a theatrical run.

UPDATE (12/13/17): Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters has fallen out of the top 10 in its fourth weekend. Kogyotsushin either doesn't cover top 10s or World of KJ can't translate it. As a result this will likely be the final update unless more information is uncovered.

Based on its dips in percentage, projections estimate Planet of the Monsters at a $3.1 Million. Additionally, Toho Cinemas revealed the last day the movie will be playing is December 21st, making it impossible to hit even $3.5 Million. The estimated attendance sits is 169,000.

Wow. But then again I really believe this was intended to be a straight-to-video/made-for-TV type of movie anyway. Kinda like Batman: Mask of The Phantasm back in the day. Had this been live action it would have done scores better.

Maybe, but then Toho would be breaking their contract with Legendary about not making any live-action Godzilla movies until after Godzilla vs. Kong in 2020. Of course, I do not know if that contract is real, so can somebody please reply and tell me if it is real?

Yes it's real. I was at G-Fest 2017 and Shinji Higuchi confirmed it. It was a major factor in how much time he and Anno had in making Shin Godzilla. I imagine that this film being animated and co-produced by Polygon was a way to work around their contract with Legendary.

Do you think the next 2 anime films will get theatrical releases or go straight to video/TV? This was a planned trilogy right?

To Octopus: I do not know, but I do know that it was a planned trilogy.

To The Legend of Brian: I know what G-Fest is, but where is it at? I have always wanted to go there ever since I found out about it, but it never says where it is. Do you know where it is?

I'm no expert on it so I wouldn't even know how to answer. If I had to guess, it all depends on how much Toho got from Netflix. If that has already payed for the cost of the three movies, then I don't see a reason to not release the movies theatrically. Toho only stands to earn some extra cash from it. If not, Toho might just put them directly on Netflix. 

Thanks for the help, anyway.

It's in Chicago. You can look up G-Fest on Google, but here's the site.