"Godzilla vs. Kong" Box Office Improvement Ideas Thread

One of the things that worked well for Skull Island's marketing, which Godzilla vs. Kong doesn't have, is the cast. Putting two MCU faces (now days three) and John Goodman (coming off the success of 10 Cloverfield Lane the prior year) was a big draw. But I don't think this movie has the names for that kind of marketing.

I do like the boxing match push from an ad perspective--While I hate it when people only look at these films like boxing or wrestling matches, it admittedly may work to market the thing. At least it would be something WB hasn't tried before.

My idea for treating the marketing as "professional wrestling" was from some of the marketing for Latino countries for Godzilla: King of the Monsters. I REALLY liked that little bit of marketing from that region.

There was merchandise that depicted Godzilla and Ghidorah as rivals akin to wrestling, which I imagine was done to appeal to "luchador" and whatnot.

Plus, Godzilla and Kong have a film history as the first major rivals. Drawing upon that original film history to inform the advertising of this one would be a good idea, I think.

As for the actor cast, you do have a point. That's why I suggested also focusing on Godzilla and Kong as characters. If you treat them as high profile actors themselves, you could work in their film histories as "actor background", in a sense.

I've got a bit of an inquiry to ask here.

Do you guys know of anyone else besides Mike Dougherty that I could potentially bring these ideas to that could influence the marketing direction for the next Monsterverse film?

Slightly off topic, I didn't like anything Tom Hiddleston's character did in Skull Island. I honestly can't think of a reason that character should have been in the film. The bar fight scene was dumb and unnecessary and the smoke sword scene was dumb and unnecessary. I can't remember anything else he did.

Ah, but he was marketable, and thus likely drew in people on that alone.

My own older sister initially only wanted to see the film for him, and that's terrible.

We need to have something like that for the next film, which is why I brought up the angle of playing up the characters of Godzilla and Kong to give them "actor cred", so to speak.

Goddammit, we got one here too!

I'm trying to make a serious thread about ways to improve the marketing and whatnot to help the next film's box office, and then this crap shows up >:(

he posted on my forum too

Okay, let's try and get things back on track.

So to further expand on the "professional wrestling/boxing match" idea, I was thinking that the marketing and merchandise would be focused on picking which Titan you want to win.

They could actually divide the marketing campaign into 2 distinct halves: Team Godzilla, and Team Kong.

The draw of the film would, hopefully, be that audiences will latch onto the rivalry and go in to see which one will win, kinda like Civil War except with giant monsters.

Cereal Boxes.

Now here me out: BvS had special cereal with collectible boxes, Civil War had special cereal with collectible boxes, why not GvK? It would be the same style of packaging, Godzilla on one box and Kong on the other, and would put the duo on yet another store isle, raising public awareness. Could be a great way to have younger kids find out about it and get their parents to take them, if GvK keeps f-bombs out of the movie I'd say it'll be a great see-with-your-kids movie. :P  Maybe they could come up with a whole new type of cereal instead of another flavor of lucky charms, perhaps a mint chocolate cereal that turns the milk blue for Godzilla, and a cocoa puffs with palm tree and skull marshmallows for Kong.

I dunno, I'd buy it.

Good thinking.

Different merchandise for the 2 Titans. Heck, if they could manage it, I think having "opposing aisles" would be cool. One side of merchandise would be all Godzilla, while the other would be all Kong.

Really play up how this is the biggest rivalry in modern film.

I love those ideas especially the boxing match. These are the two most iconic monsters in the monsterverse so they should be given an "epic battle" type promotion. Ideally a fast food chain would also do some promoting (maybe kids toys too?) and the movie concessions would do what they did in China (I think it was China!) with Godzilla KotM and have the soda/popcorn containers promoting the film too. If this is the last one of the series, go out with a bang! 

So, to continue the trend of continuing the boxing rivalry angle, I was thinking that perhaps instead of having regular trailers, you could have Kong focused and Godzilla focused trailers.

We could have fewer overall TV spots and trailers, but they could be released in pairs, one for Godzilla and one for Kong. Once again, this would hopefully drive home the point of this being a major film rivalry and attract audiences to root for one Titan or the other.

Other things you could do this for include opposing posters, signs, and maybe even actors that are always paired up against each other. I don't think a rivalry like this has ever really been done in Hollywood before, and I think it'd be a good angle to approach the marketing from.

Another angle I was thinking would be beneficial would be a historical angle.

I was told recently that Godzilla: King of the Monsters may have suffered somewhat from the "Justice League effect", whereby it introduced a lot of new characters all at once.

While we don't have to worry about that, technically speaking, with Godzilla and Kong, it may be a good idea to have some parts of the marketing focused around bringing viewers up to speed on the events and characters leading up to the movie. Character pieces that delve into the creation and personalities behind Godzilla and Kong may be beneficial to getting watchers more invested in them beyond the spectacle.

Perhaps have the actors and production staff come on to talk about Godzilla and Kong as characters in interviews that are made widely available on the internet.

Any other ideas you guys have?

I might as well keep things up.

I Tweeted Mike Dougherty and D Man1954 recently about the "pro wrestling/boxing" idea, so I started wondering how else I could spread the message.

What we need are some good influential social media outlets to garner further interest in the film. Maybe start a hashtag brand, perhaps get some media polls and whatnot.

Stuff like this that can help get people aware of and interested in the film's primary draw, Godzilla and Kong. Perhaps the marketing could have a contest or something like on this site between Godzilla and Kong based on social media platforms. The winning team could determine which of the 2 Titans could get something like a particular character focus poster or something becoming the dominant poster, stuff like that.

Encourage a rivalry within the potential audiences, basically.

While not necessarily for Godzilla vs. Kong, recent news has me wondering for the current film's box office.

You think maybe they'll also attach a potential trailer for Godzilla vs. Kong with theatre viewings of Godzilla: King of the Monsters as it closes out its theatre run? I think that'd be a good way of hopefully getting in some extra oomph to not end up marked down for losses bar the extended Chinese theatre run.

Maybe the trailer for Godzilla vs. Kong could be attached to it during the release of or a little bit before SDCC's trailer, assuming it gives one out, with a trailer for Godzilla: King of the Monsters coming out that makes it clear that you can see the trailer early before it's released online.