The King of the Monsters just rewrote a record book. Godzilla Minus Zero, the follow-up to Takashi Yamazaki’s Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One, opened at No. 1 at the North American box office over the November 6–8 weekend, earning about $30.6 million from 3,254 locations according to Box Office Mojo’s final figures. Sunday studio estimates had pointed even higher, at roughly $31.6 million, but either way the result is historic.
A record for a foreign-language film
Boxoffice Pro notes that the opening is the biggest ever in the domestic market for a foreign-language live-action film. The previous record holder was Zhang Yimou’s wuxia epic Hero, which opened to $17.8 million back in 2004. For perspective, Godzilla Minus One debuted with $11.4 million in 2023 and finished its North American run at about $57.1 million. The sequel has covered more than half of that lifetime total in a single weekend.
The weekend broke down neatly: around $14.6 million on Friday (including $6.7 million from Thursday previews), $9.45 million on Saturday and $7.56 million on Sunday, based on the studio estimates. Distributor GKIDS, better known for animated arthouse titles, now has the biggest hit in its history on its hands.
IMAX did the heavy lifting
Yamazaki shot Minus Zero as the first Japanese production filmed for IMAX, and audiences clearly wanted the big screen. IMAX auditoriums contributed an estimated $12.7 million of the domestic opening, about 40 percent, from just 429 screens. Globally, IMAX accounted for around $21.3 million.
Word of mouth looks strong, too. The film holds a 90 percent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes and earned an “A” CinemaScore from opening-night audiences. That combination usually means a gentle second-weekend drop, and the Veterans Day holiday on Wednesday should add a mid-week bump.
A global stomp
This is also the first time a Japanese Godzilla film has opened as a near-global simultaneous release, rolling out in more than 100 territories. It launched first in Japan on November 3, Godzilla’s 72nd birthday, with about $8.7 million, and the worldwide total already stands near $63 million according to Boxoffice Pro.
The Cat in the Hat lands softly in second
Warner Bros. Animation’s CGI The Cat in the Hat, with Bill Hader voicing the mischievous feline, took second place with about $20 million from more than 4,000 theaters. Families who went seem happy, given the “A” CinemaScore, but critics were cool (46 percent on Rotten Tomatoes). It is the softest opening yet for a Dr. Seuss feature, well below 2003’s live-action Cat in the Hat ($38.3 million) and 2018’s The Grinch ($67.6 million). Several big international markets, including the UK, France and Germany, don’t open until December, so the global picture is far from finished.
The rest of the top ten
Angel Studios’ Revolutionary War musical Drummer Boy opened third with around $9.4 million, ahead of Sony’s Indian mythological epic Ramayana: Rise of a Legend, which added roughly $8.9 million over the weekend. A24’s horror hit You Can See Everything slipped to fifth in its fourth weekend and is now closing in on $80 million.
The art-house story of the weekend was Martin McDonagh’s spy comedy Wild Horse Nine. Searchlight skipped the usual platform release and went straight to 1,100 screens, landing in the top ten with about $5.9 million and a per-theater average higher than The Cat in the Hat. Its 94 percent critics’ score and early awards chatter for John Malkovich should keep it in the conversation.
Two smaller releases also stood out. Regal’s theatrical run of early Heated Rivalry episodes brought in about $1.4 million from 945 theaters, a surprising number for a TV compilation. A24’s Club Kid, from writer-director-star Jordan Firstman, posted the weekend’s best per-screen average, about $65,000 at each of its six New York and Los Angeles venues.
What’s next
The coming frame gets busier. Sony’s Ghost Soldier with Jim Caviezel opens on Veterans Day, followed on the weekend by Paramount’s Ebenezer with Johnny Depp, David Leitch’s heist thriller How to Rob a Bank with Nicholas Hoult, and James Gray’s Paper Tiger starring Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller. Any of them would need a very strong start to knock Godzilla off the top spot.
For now, the takeaway is simple: a subtitled monster movie from Japan just beat a Hollywood family film by about ten million dollars. Yamazaki’s giant lizard keeps proving that audiences will show up for a well-made spectacle, whatever language it speaks.