Godzilla’s back, kiddies. And he’s back in a big way. The Gareth Edwards-directed Godzilla reboot scared up a monstrous $196 million global opening this weekend, putting to bed any skepticism that the character was dead to mainstream audiences after Roland Emmerich’s much-maligned 1998 movie.

“Our initial goal was to re-brand and re-establish the property in a Tiffany way,” says Jon Jashsni, President and CCO of Legendary Pictures, in a chat with Variety. “Now, we’re trying to take in all of the results of the weekend,” he adds. “It’s very validating. You can’t ask for a better situation when you have a group of people, who were perhaps expecting to be let down were impressed,” he explains. â€œIt all lines up when that eco-system aligns and starts feeding off itself.”

Critical response has been largely favorable, though not as overwhelmingly positive as things initially seemed. Amongst fans, the reception is also quite jubilant- though, as with most geek properties, the film has some very vocal critics. Regardless, Warner Bros and Legendary are so happy with the financial returns and the generally favorable buzz around the film that they have all ready greenlit a sequel.

So we can definitely expect some more Godzilla-sized action to stomp its way into theaters in the years to come. 

Have you seen it? Do you plan to? What’d you think? Personally, I was disappointed. Though that may have more to do with walking into it with very high expectations- based on what I’d heard from many fans. I walked in ready to love and gush over the movie, and welcome Gareth Edwards to the upper echelon of genre directors. What I found was a film that was merely okay, having spent too much of its running time on a dull human story (made dull by Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s sleepwalking performance), too little time on Godzilla, and made the monster abit too cuddly and heroic. But that’s just me. Feel free to sound off below! I’m sure many of you are quite excited for more Godzilla.