The Chinese poster for Godzilla vs. Kong Photo: Courtesy of Maoyan

Finally, Godzilla vs. Kong, the latest blockbuster about Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros' Monsterverse, is set to hit big screens in the Chinese mainland on Friday, five days ahead of its North American release. 

The world's largest film market has high hopes for this more than $160 million budget movie, which was pushed from March 13, 2020, to November 20, 2020, and then moved up from May 21 to Friday. 

This will mark the second new live-action release from Hollywood following the disappointing live-action/animated Tom and Jerry, which performed poorly both critically and financially in the Chinese mainland, which set a number of records during the Chinese New Year season in February based solely on the performance of its domestic films. 

Working with stars like Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry and Shun Oguri, director Adam Wingard helms the latest blockbuster in the Monsterverse franchise, which hopefully brings what Chinese audiences are happy to see: dazzling special effects and exciting fight scenes between giant monsters. 

Reviews on Chinese media rating platform Douban have been positive so far, with most reviewers giving the film four to five stars out for fight scenes described as "worth the ticket price." 

Presales for the film, including prescreenings, reached 51.87 million yuan ($7.93 million) by Thursday afternoon, according to data from Chinese ticketing platform Maoyan, while half a million users on the site have the film on their  "want to see list."