Legendary Pictures’ forthcoming big budget “Godzilla vs. Kong,” the fourth film in its Monster-verse of movies following 2014’s “Godzilla,” 2017’s “Kong: Skull Island” and 2019’s “Godzilla: King of the Monsters,” looks to be heading to streaming.
Heat Vision reports that Netflix made an offer of more than $200 million for the film while WarnerMedia has blocked the deal while preparing an offer of its own for its in-house streamer HBO Max.
Legendary financed 75% of the budget and has a say where it ultimately ends up, but distributor Warner Bros. Pictures controls the release. A Warner Bros. Pictures spokesperson denies the report to the trade, saying: “We plan to release Godzilla vs. Kong theatrically next year as scheduled.”
One issue is China where the previous two films did well – around 30% of their entire gross. A Netflix deal wouldn’t cover China and so Legendary could still go theatrical there, while the HBO Max deal will potentially follow the same plan as “Wonder Woman 1984” will use this Christmas Day – theatrical everywhere with a simultaneous HBO Max launch in the United States.
“Godzilla vs. Kong” is currently slated for a May 21st 2021 opening but it is far from clear that U.S. theaters will be fully back in business by then. At the same time there’s a pile-up of major releases that were pushed due to the pandemic, and Legendary is saddled with the cost of carrying an unreleased big-budget film.
The previous film, “Godzilla: King of the Monsters,” snagged $386 million at the global box office. The earlier two films took in just over a half billion each.