Toho's big guy owns the North American box office this weekend! Godzilla Minus Zero opened at No. 1 with an estimated $31.61 million from 3,254 theaters, according to Sunday's studio estimates on Box Office Mojo. That put Takashi Yamazaki's sequel well clear of Warner Bros.' The Cat in the Hat, which landed in second place with $20.5 million.
Final weekend numbers are due Monday.
And it set not one, but two records along the way!
Per TheWrap, it's the biggest opening ever for distributor GKIDS, more than doubling the $13 million The Boy and the Heron opened to in 2023. And Anime News Network reports it's the highest North American opening ever for a live-action foreign film. The previous high was the $17.8 million that Zhang Yimou's Hero opened to back in August 2004, per Box Office Mojo.
This is NOT the biggest opening for a foreign film, period. That record still belongs to Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle, which opened to $70.6 million in September 2025, per ANN. TheWrap ranks it second among live-action foreign-language openings, behind the $83 million The Passion of the Christ opened to in 2004. That film's dialogue was in Aramaic, Hebrew and Latin, but it was an American production.
The Numbers has the daily breakdown at $14.6 million on Friday (that includes $6.7 million from previews), $9.45 million on Saturday and an estimated $7.56 million on Sunday. A record 74% of the gross came from premium large format screens, ANN says, with IMAX alone bringing in about $12 million. ANN also notes this is the first Japanese film to qualify to advertise itself as "Filmed for IMAX."
Audiences seem happy with what they saw, too. TheWrap reports an A CinemaScore. The Numbers puts the worldwide total at about $63 million so far.
Godzilla Minus One opened to $11.4 million in December 2023 (a record debut we covered at the time) and finished its domestic run at $57.1 million, per Box Office Mojo. Minus Zero opened at nearly triple that, by TheWrap's math, and has already banked more than half of the original's domestic total in a single weekend!
The big weekend in America follows a record start in Japan. Toho opened the film there on November 3rd, Godzilla Day, and the film's official account says it pulled in 910 million yen with more than 590,000 admissions on opening day alone. That's the No. 1 opening day ever for any live-action film in Japan, domestic or foreign, per the Kogyo Tsushin tally the studio cited.
According to Cinema Today, that opening day came in at more than 201% of Minus One's, so just over double, and Toho is now eyeing the first 10 billion yen run in the series' history.
Minus One won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, the first Japanese film to win that category, and ANN notes it ranked as the third-highest-grossing foreign-language film ever in the US as of 2024. Now its sequel, a subtitled and R-rated Japanese movie, has opened in first place.
For what critics thought going in, see our roundup of the first reactions.
Did you catch Godzilla Minus Zero in IMAX this weekend? Does it pass Minus One's $57.1 million domestic total, or go all the way to $100 million?
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