With Coronavirus still creating big challenges for movie theaters, it’s been hard for ANY movie to make a big splash at the box office at the moment. Enter the Warner Bros. epic GODZILLA VS. KONG, which definitely feels like a movie you’d want to see on a big screen. The film premiered on HBO Max the same day it hit theaters, but it looks like some folks figured seeing it at home on a television just wasn’t going to cut it. The Legendary “Monsterverse” movie (directed by Adam Wingard) broke a domestic opening weekend record, and is now officially the highest-grossing film to be released theatrically during the pandemic… and all despite the COVID-19 scare. The money started rolling in on Friday of a week ago bringing in nearly $70 million dollars ($69.5 million to be exact), which already put it ahead of Christopher Nolan’s TENET‘s $58.2 million opening, yet another big budget movie released by Warner Bros. last fall. But the current worldwide gross for GODZILLA VS. KONG has now reached $357.8 million in international revenue, which is just shy of TENET‘s worldwide gross of $363 million… and it’s almost guaranteed to pass that at this point. While those numbers aren’t exactly stellar when compared to numbers pre-pandemic, keep in mind many European markets are still under lockdown, yet that hasn’t slowed down ticket sales in markets that are accessible to moviegoers.

So why is this important and yet depressing? It’s important because it indicates we’re slowly but surely returning to a place where people feel comfortable going to the movies again, and theaters may actually have a chance of bouncing back… and the fact that the film opened the same day it premiered on HBO Max and still made this much money shows that streaming isn’t necessarily going to kill movie theaters… at least not yet. But it’s depressing because by Hollywood standards, this is still not a “huge” success in terms of box office, and shows giant tent-pole films like this may not be practical moving forward until we go “back to normal” completely, otherwise major film studios will undoubtedly lose money. Just as one example, GODZILLA VS. KONG had a production budget of $160 million, which does not include the advertising dollars spent to market it. Usually, major releases like this need to at least triple their budget before being considered an actual success, and with Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures splitting the profits and the HBO Max streaming release (how do you parse profit from streaming service subscriptions?), it’s hard to say whether or not they’re even close to being considered truly profitable.

Until COVID-19 lightens up even more, we may not see blockbuster films like this again for a while, and that may be the smartest play in order to keep studio finances in check. One thing is certain, if Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures were trying to decide if more sequels made sense, these circumstantially-impressive earnings should give them enough reason to consider them, especially since by the time another sequel is made we will hopefully be past all this insanity. Did you see GODZILLA VS. KONG? And if so did you see it in a theater? Are you ready to go back to theaters? Let us know in the comments!

Legends collide in Godzilla vs. Kong as these mythic adversaries meet in a spectacular battle for the ages, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. Kong and his protectors undertake a perilous journey to find his true home, and with them is Jia, a young orphaned girl with whom he has formed a unique and powerful bond. But they unexpectedly find themselves in the path of an enraged Godzilla, cutting a swath of destruction across the globe. The epic clash between the two titans—instigated by unseen forces—is only the beginning of the mystery that lies deep within the core of the Earth.

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