2014's Godzilla Was A Divisive Box Office Hit That Paved The Way For So Much More

(Welcome to Tales from the Box Office, our column that examines box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, as well as what we can learn from them.)

"This isn't art. It isn't even great trash. It's a con game, and we bear the claw marks." That's what critic Rita Kempley wrote for the Washington Post in a particularly scathing review of Roland Emmerich's 1998 movie, "Godzilla." It was the first attempt by Hollywood to bring the classic monster to life in America, and it was a spectacular failure. That's what Warner Bros., Legendary, and director Gareth Edwards were working against while crafting 2014's "Godzilla." Skepticism was built in. They had to prove that a film within this franchise made outside of Japan could work. 

They did that and then some.

"Godzilla is one of the world's most powerful pop culture icons, and we at Legendary are thrilled to be able to create a modern epic based on this long-loved Toho franchise," said then-chairman and CEO of Legendary Thomas Tull in 2010 when it was announced that the company was to produce a new film in Toho's beloved franchise. "Our plans are to produce the Godzilla that we, as fans, would want to see. We intend to do justice to those essential elements that have allowed this character to remain as pop culturally relevant for as long as it has." That is all easier said than done, but Tull and Edwards proved to be up to the task.

In this week's Tales from the Box Office, we're looking back at 2014's "Godzilla" in honor of its tenth anniversary. We'll go over how the film came to be, how a scrapped IMAX short indirectly led to this film's creation, how Edwards arrived at his divisive take on the King of the Monsters, what happened when the movie hit theaters, what happened in the aftermath of the release, and what lessons we can learn from it a decade later. Let's dig in, shall we?

Ultimately, Max Borenstein received credit for the script, while Dave Callaham ended up with a "story by" credit. Others, such as David S. Goyer ("Man of Steel") and Drew Pearce ("Iron Man 3") did some script doctoring along the way. As for who would fill the ever-important director's chair? It was Gareth Edwards, who, up to that point, was known best as a visual effects artist. But it was his low-budget debut feature "Monsters" that impressed executives enough to give him a crack at a big-budget blockbuster. Edwards, speaking in 2011, made it clear he had no illusions about the pressure to deliver the goods.

"Everyone involved knows what the film has to be. What's important to me is that, as well as spectacle, you have to give a s*** about what's happening and why."

Edwards made a very deliberate choice to take a "less is more" approach in crafting his take on the franchise – more of a Spielberg-esque "Jaws" approach, with much of the monster mayhem happening from a human POV. This choice would prove to be divisive with certain critics and audience members. It did, however, set the film apart at a time when the franchise was 60 years old. Speaking with Cloture Club in 2014, the filmmaker explained that he and his team tried to ground the craziness of a monster movie by treating it like a natural disaster in some ways:

"There's never really going to be giant monsters that come out of the ocean and smash a city and cause a tsunami and things like this. But, there are events that smash cities and cause tsunamis within nature and war, and so you don't have to think very hard to recall that imagery."

"In a weird way, what you're trying to do subconsciously is remind the audience that as absurd as everything happening is, this stuff does happen," Edwards added. "It's a fantasy but I think all good fantasy has something truthful or real about it, at least below the surface."

Warner Bros. released "Godzilla" in theaters on May 16, 2014. With a $160 million budget, it was orders of magnitude larger than Edwars' "Monsters," which was made for around $500,000. Even so, the studio bet big on his vision. That vision proved to be a bit divisive out of the gate. While some critics, such as Germain Lussier writing for /Film in 2014, praised the film for its unique human POV, the relative lack of monster mayhem left others wanting. But the conversation around this one was indisputably more positive than it was for Emmerich's ill-fated take on the franchise.

Fortunately, WB and Legendary's faith in Edwards' vision was rewarded in short order as the film proved to be a sizable hit out of the gate. On its opening weekend, the much-anticipated blockbuster pulled in $93.1 million, easily topping the charts. Wisely, no new major competition decided to go up against the King of the Monsters. That just left "Neighbors" in its second weekend and "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" in its third weekend to fend off.

The only bad news is that "Godzilla" fell off a cliff domestically in its second weekend, dropping 67% with a $30.9 million second frame as "X-Men: Days of Future Past" entered the fray with a $90.8 million debut. Even so, we're dealing with a franchise that has mass, global appeal and that proved to be the key to its success.

The film finished its run with a respectable $200.6 million domestically to go with a whopping $328.4 million internationally for a grand total of $529 million worldwide. It finished as the 14th biggest movie of 2014, coming in above "Rio 2" ($498.7 million) and behind Clint Eastwood's runaway hit "American Sniper" ($547.6 million). Earning 3.3 times its budget was more than enough to call this one a major success, paving the way for not just a sequel, but an entire cinematic universe full of monsters.

For the larger MonsterVerse franchise, it's remarkable that Warner Bros. and Legendary have managed to exercise such discipline. Rather than rush out a movie every year and a bunch of TV shows (one TV show has been sufficient thus far), they've played the slow and steady game. It has worked very well. Other franchise-obsessed studios would do well to learn from what has been accomplished here. While other universes have flamed out, Godzilla and his fellow monsters remain standing with a bright future before them.

All around, "less is more" seems to be the big lesson to take away from the success of "Godzilla." Opinions vary on the film to this day, and there are decisions that can be called into question, such as killing off Bryan Cranston's character so early on. But there is no denying that taking a reserved approach to the monsters in the film helped it stand out. Edwards, speaking to Den of Geek in 2014, said it better than I possibly could:

"It's a fascinating thing, if you look at the timeline of cinema — and maybe this is showing my age — but there's a specific point where digital effects arrived. And if you look at horror and action, like my favorite films, like 'Aliens' or 'Close Encounters' or 'Jaws,' they're movies that couldn't show everything. They're so powerful as a result, and there's an important lesson for filmmakers there, which is that sometimes, less is more. And sometimes, more is more."

In the age of CGI and inflated budgets, "more is more" is tempting. But less can certainly be more, and that's worth remembering. More doesn't automatically equal better.