Godzilla: King of the Monsters is No. 1 at the box-office. The Godzilla sequel opened to $49 million in the US and about $130 million internationally for a worldwide total of $179 million. While that’s less impressive than the $230 million that early estimates had projected it’d open at, it’s still a decent number in its own right. The domestic number may be a lot smaller than 2014’s Godzilla but it appears internationally, the movie has closed the gap falling around $14 million shy of the $193 million that Gareth Edwards’ monster movie mustered.

Undeniably these numbers have a lot to do with critic reviews. Even as audiences around the globe have been lapping up the action, the movie didn’t fare well against critics, causing excitement to plummet a bit. Fans are still praising the movie for its beautifully choreographed action, the serious plot it offers with themes of human extinction and the memorable ways it honors the 1954 version. Certainly count us among the ones who favored watching Godzilla 2 on the big screen.

MonsterVerse movies have thus far made anywhere between 2-3 times their opening weekend at the box office. This makes it a lot more difficult for King of the Monsters to even touch $100 million in domestic gross alone, with the worldwide total looking more in the range of $300 – $400 million optimistically. Can positive word of mouth from fans sway moviegoers to give Godzilla 2 a shot? Could such online chatter actually lead Godzilla to have a less drop than big-budget movies generally do? We should find that out in the coming weekend.

Godzilla 2: King of the Monsters is currently running in theaters. Check out our review of the movie right here on Appocalypse.