Is an Epic Monster Clash enough to get viewers up off the couch and out to cinemas again…permanently?

Previously, the mantle of largest Box Office opening day since the start of the pandemic was held by Wonder Woman 1984, the other huge Warner Bros streaming/Box Office hybrid release which opened on its first day with $7.5M on December 25th, and was credited for an additional 17.2 million subscribers to the HBO Max streaming app in the fourth quarter.

Both films fared well on social media - pre-launch commentary for the new Warner Bros’/Legendary’s “Godzilla vs. Kong” was overwhelmingly positive on social media (76%+), and from a volume standpoint drove 300M video views and 14M post-level engagements in the ninety day lead up to, and including the March 31st release date.

By comparison, in the 90 day lead-up to and including their release days:

Wonder Woman 1984 drove 19M consumer engagements and 120M video views

Monster Hunter drove 3.5M consumer engagements and 64.8M video views (and opened to $2.2M at 1,736 theaters over Dec. 18-20)

The Unholy (opening April 2nd 2021) has driven a little over 1M consumer engagements and 24M video views in the last 90 days

For streaming-only releases, Amazon Prime Video’s Coming 2 America drove 9M consumer engagements and 112M video views on social media – and while there are no Box Office comparables has been credited with being the leading opening weekend of any streaming movie in 2021 so far (driving 1.4 billion minutes of viewing during the period of March 1 to 7 according to Nielsen).

And here are comparables for the two most recent films in the Godzilla/Kong franchise:

With social media enthusiasm on the rise, consumers seem to still be somewhat undecided on how motivated they are to venture to the cinemas as the pandemic continues to play out, and it’s anybody’s guess as to how quickly the average person will shake off the entrenched habit of curling up on a sofa or bed to “stay in”, either on their big-screen, or most-convenient/best available screen on a mobile device or laptop.

A recent study we conducted suggested that we have gotten pretty comfortable at home, and may be slow to motivate at least for the foreseeable future at any true scale, with almost two thirds of U.S. consumers reporting their willingness to pay to stream a movie at home if it is available the same day as in cinemas:

When we dug a little deeper as to what is driving this shift, Covid concerns still dominated with “Safety” being cited as the primary reason for almost one quarter of U.S. consumers, but this was followed by “Convenience” (21%) and being able to view “On-Demand” (18%).

Perhaps the most instructive statistic in all of this, was the statement that over half of all U.S. consumers were preferring to watch content via a mobile device, tablet or personal computer – and this is certainly something to continue to track over time to see if this is something that will remain persistent as more cities open up and consumers feel more comfortable enjoying films on the big screen again. There have also been some very strong streaming-only releases, such as

What does the future hold? For the March 31st release of Godzilla vs Kong, social comments suggest that whether you show up at the cinema for this release may depend on whether you are “TeamGodzilla” or “TeamKong”. Mentions of “Godzilla” overlapped with mentions of “going to the movies”, “theater” and “cinema” 40% more frequently on a normalized basis, than those talking about “King Kong” or “Kong”. Which may be great news for how the Box Office numbers will play out, given #TeamGodzilla mentioned 1.7x more frequently than #TeamKong overall.

Or perhaps the future is summarized more succinctly in this Twitter comment:

“I'll be subscribing to HBO Max… Why go to theaters anymore? Save money. Popcorn, pizza, beer,...watch it on 60" with a booming sound system… And HBO Max for a year will still be paying less than going to the Theater for one night only. And I don’t have to put shoes or socks on!”

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