At the time of this writing "Godzilla: King of the Monsters" has been released and I have seen it. To say it was everything I wanted out of a Godzilla movie would be an understatement. It had creative and wild monster fights, decent human characters, and clever references to the franchise. Which makes it even more painful to see critics' opinions split on the film and the box office take (in the U.S. anyway) being very lackluster.
In fact, most of the films in the "Monsterverse" film line have done average to O.K. at the box office which kind of puzzles me. These aren't some "no name" creatures from obscure films this is Godzilla and King Kong, they are "the" monsters that immediately come to mind when you think of movie monsters. They are the most famous giant creatures in all of cinema, so why haven't many people been going?
It pains me to say this, but the lackluster box office results actually make a lot of sense when you realize that the Godzilla and King Kong films have almost always been a niche product here in the West. Godzilla films never made the bulk of their money in the West and were often scarcely distributed in theaters in America (which is the fate of most foreign films in America). Godzilla is remembered so well in the West, not because a lot of people went to see those films in theaters, but due to three things home video, television, and the volume of Godzilla movies.
Home video really started to become a relevant thing in the 1980s and many people were exposed to films that they would have never been exposed to before. It was easier and cheaper to distribute foreign films on home video than in theaters, so home video was the way many of us viewed Godzilla films. This hasn't really changed much to this day.
Television was also the main way people were exposed to Godzilla. Many television channels in the 80s and 90s would fill there lineups with imported monster movies in order to fill time slots in an inexpensive way. They were also used as a cheap form of children's programming. This led to a small but sizable fandom that grew out from the people who watched Godzilla constantly as a child.
However, the biggest reason people remember Godzilla so well despite none of his films being that big of a hit in the West is the volume of Godzilla films that exist. As of now, there are 35 Godzilla films, that's more films than either the James Bond franchise or the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Because Godzilla kept getting sequel after sequel he always remained somewhat relevant in people's minds and became a pop culture staple.
Despite having a large amount of sequels too, King Kong is mostly remembered for the 1933 film and that film alone. There's a reason why they remade the 1933 film twice. It's images and set pieces are so iconic that nobody really remembers the rest of the King Kong films. This is a bit of a shame because these films are a lot of fun and benefit from being viewed on a large screen. I hope one day audiences find the love and admiration for monster movies that I have, it would be nice to have more people to talk about them with.