Not many franchise in history can lay claim to a 100 percent success rate, but one of the most consistent has been Legendary’s MonsterVerse, even if third chapter Godzilla: King of the Monsters sticks out like a sore thumb.
There’s no shame in being the weakest installment in any ongoing mythology, because it’s a title that has to be awarded somewhere down the line, but what makes it all the more intriguing is that the other three blockbuster monster mashes have proven to be remarkably consistent right across the critical and commercial board.
Godzilla, Kong: Skull Island, and Godzilla vs. Kong come bearing respective Rotten Tomatoes scores of 76, 75, and 75 percent, with King of the Monsters lagging way behind at a tepid 42 percent. At the box office, the first two chapters hauled in $529 million and $566 million – with the epic crossover still managing to reach $470 million despite releasing simultaneously on HBO Max in the midst of a pandemic – with its predecessor once more bringing up the rear with at $366 million.
What makes it even more frustrating is that you could make a strong argument for King of the Monsters possessing the best marketing campaign out of the four, although it quickly became clear that some stunning promos and eye-catching posters weren’t enough to overcompensate for the shortcomings of the end product.
Either way, it’s been proving its worth on streaming at least, with FlixPatrol naming the sole unsuccessful outlier of the MonsterVerse as one of the most-watched features on iTunes.