The fifth installment in Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures’ MonsterVerse, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, stomped into theaters Thursday night and fittingly made quite a dent at the box office.
According to The Wrap, the movie took in $10 million from Thursday sneaks ahead of Friday’s official opening. This easily beats the $6.3 million earned in sneaks in the summer of 2019 by its predecessor, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the trade points out.
The sneak preview performance means the new offering could beat its highest-end box office estimations for Easter weekend, $53 million.
The last movie featuring the beasts was 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong, the first big movie to hit the big screen following theaters being shuttered during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This time around, the titular kaiju form an uneasy alliance “against a colossal undiscovered threat hidden within our world, challenging their very existence – and our own,” according to its official synopsis.
In addition to the titular monsters, Godzilla x Kong sees the return of Godzilla vs. Kong‘s humanstars Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry and Kaylee Hottle.