Just when you thought the Godzilla vs. Kong reshuffles were over, Warner Bros. and HBO Max announced yesterday that the upcoming clash of the Titans had been pushed back again. Admittedly, five days is hardly the end of the world, but it was seen by some as a strange and unnecessary move when the trailer had generated so much buzz after being unveiled on Sunday.
One line of speculation is that the latest chapter in the MonsterVerse was pushed back to the last day of the month to avoid being caught in the immediate aftermath of the Justice League Snyder Cut, which is guaranteed to dominate both the cultural conversation and the HBO Max most-watched list when it debuts shortly before Godzilla vs. Kong, although an official launch date has yet to be confirmed.
However, anticipation is clearly high for Adam Wingard’s epic blockbuster, with the trailer becoming the studio’s most-watched promo ever after racking up over 25 million views in 24 hours across all of WB’s affiliated YouTube channels. That’s a hugely impressive statistic, and the pent up frustration from fans who had been desperate to see the first footage for months clearly resulted in an overwhelming demand once we finally got to witness what Godzilla vs. Kong has in store.
That’s it. #GvK new trailer becomes the biggest debut ever for WB, after reaching 15.8M views in 24h on WB’s YouTube Channel, and 9.8M on #Legendary, #WarnerBrosUK, #GodzillavsKong and #HBOmax Twitter accounts. 25.6M across all platforms, beating #TheBatman’s 22M & #Dune’s 20.8M pic.twitter.com/I7aMXMTqrp
— Luiz Fernando (@Luiz_Fernando_J) January 25, 2021
Drawing in more views than Matt Reeves’ surprise trailer for The Batman is a badge of honor for the monster mash, and after initially being announced for release in March 2020, Godzilla vs. Kong fans will be happy to wait another five days given the number of occasions that the project has already been moved around the calendar since the Coronavirus pandemic first decimated the industry almost a year ago.