Sony Defends ‘Godzilla’s’ Success

By all rights, executives at Sony Pictures Entertainment should have come into work Tuesday exulting in the fact that their film, “Godzilla,” devoured the competition with $55.7 million in box office over the four-day Memorial Day holiday weekend.

Instead, they were put on the defensive explaining why their heavily marketed monster-run-amok film did not come close to beating the record Memorial Day weekend opening of $90.1 million set last year by “The Lost World: Jurassic Park.”

“The numbers [for “Godzilla”] were huge--doing $16,000 a screen--but they set themselves up for failure by beating their chest before it was time to beat their chest,” one industry source said of Sony.

Sony’s distribution chief Jeff Blake denied that his studio had fueled expectations. “I’m not sure whose opinion it was that if we didn’t beat ‘Lost World’ we wouldn’t be successful,” Blake said. “It wasn’t our opinion.”

Blake noted that in 6 1/2 days of release, “Godzilla” has taken in a total of $74.3 million. “That’s a lot of money,” he said. “It’s one of the top 10 openings of all time.”

Paul Dergarabedian, executive vice president of the box-office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co., agreed with Blake’s assessment. “With ‘Godzilla’s’ huge marketing push, that automatically raised expectations, but $74.3 million is nothing to sneeze at.”

Weekend Box Office

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Four-day gross/ Screens/ Weeks in Movie (Studio) Total (millions) Average Release 1. “Godzilla” $55.7 3,310 1 (Sony/TriStar) $74.3 $16,836 2. “Deep Impact” $19.4 3,250 3 (Paramount/DreamWorks) $98.9 $5,964 3. “The Horse Whisperer” $14.5 2,049 2 (Disney/Touchstone) $33.1 $7,084 4. “Bulworth” $10.5 2,047 2 (Fox) $10.7 $5,137 5. “The Quest for Camelot” $6.3 3,107 2 (Warner Bros.) $13.8 $2,031 6. “Fear/Loathing in Las Vegas” $4.3 1,126 1 (Universal) $4.3 $3,850 7. “Titanic” $3.7 2,008 23 (Paramount/Fox) $577.1 $1,829 8. “City of Angels” $3.2 1,967 7 (Warner Bros.) $70.5 $1,650 9. “He Got Game” $1.8 1,244 4 (Disney/Touchstone) $19.1 $1,421 10. “Sliding Doors” $1.3 522 5 (Miramax) $8.0 $2,510

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SOURCE: Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc.