ROME - Long live the monsters if they have the names of Godzilla and King Kong and still alive if they can do the miracle of reviving the room as it was for GODZILLA VS KONG by Adam Wingard, by Warner Bros Pictures and Legendary Pictures.
After the success in China, the new chapter of the MonsterVerse in the USA has in fact obtained the best revenue since the pandemic began, or a good 9.6 million dollars on the first day of programming in theaters.
An even more incredible result since the film is also available comfortably at home on HBO Max. For this blockbuster, however, it is the best debut since March 2020, even higher than the 7.5 million obtained by 'Wonder Woman 1984' on December 25 last.
Not only.
The monsters also agree critics and audiences - on Rotten Tomatoes the film flies to 95% of audience score - and open to the hope of a vitality of the theater after the long lockdown break, something that many did not take for granted at all.
Sequel to 'Godzilla II - King of the Monsters' and 'Kong: Skull Island', the film is still the fourth chapter of the MonsterVerse, the thirty-sixth on Godzilla and the twelfth on King Kong.
It must also be said that Godzilla is the younger of the two as he is a kaijū (monster) of Japanese cinema, which dates back to 1954 with the film of the same name, the progenitor of the popular atomic dinosaur saga.
The origins, however, are all from the side of King Kong, a giant gorilla originally from Skull Island and which in the original 1933 film has the name Kong (the name King was added later).
Also referred to as "the eighth wonder of the world", in the 2005 remake he is evoked as the last specimen of a gigantic primate species, known as Megaprimatus Kong.
However, he is the first kaiju ever created, being the first giant monster in the cinema.
But if you look closely, the difference between Godzilla and King Kong is mainly in the feelings.
If the first is a kind of dinosaur full of blind and brutal force alone, the same is not true for King Kong who, thanks perhaps also to his anthropomorphic forms, has a heart and falls in love.
This is so in the first film of 1933, where the ape loses his head for the beautiful Ann (Fay Wray) and it is still so in GODZILLA VS KONG, where the tenderness of the monster has as its object a girl named Jia.
In this latest Wingard film these mythical adversaries meet in a spectacular battle with "the fate of the world hanging in the balance," states the synopsis.
"Kong and his protectors - he continues - embark on a dangerous journey to find his real home, and with them is Jia, a young orphan with whom he has formed a unique and powerful bond. But unexpectedly they find themselves in the open sea, an enraged Godzilla. The epic clash between the two titans, instigated by invisible forces, is only the beginning of the mystery that lies deep within the Earth. "
To prepare, director Adam Wingard (Home Sick, Pop Skull) said in an interview that he revisited the Godzilla and King Kong films he grew up with, which renewed his sense of empathy for them. monsters as a child.
"I haven't seen some of those films since I was little, so it was a lot of fun - explains the director -.
Being able to go back to those times and relive those feelings, they put me in empathy with that distant world. In short - continues Wingard - I would like the audience to be emotionally involved, not only towards the human characters, but also towards the monsters. I would like - he concludes - for people to really have tears in their eyes at the end of the film, and to be involved in what is happening ".
(HANDLE).