Godzilla Minus Zero stomps to a $31.6M opening, a record for foreign-language films

Subtitles, meet your new best friend: a giant lizard. Godzilla Minus Zero took the No. 1 spot at the North American box office this weekend with $31.6 million, far above the roughly $25 million its distributor expected.

What happened? 🦖

The Japanese sequel opened in 3,254 theaters through GKids and Toho. That is the biggest launch in GKids history, topping the $13 million debut of The Boy and the Heron.

It is also being touted as the highest-grossing live-action foreign-language opening since 2004's Hero, which made $17.8 million. Audiences gave it an A CinemaScore, and it holds 90 percent from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

Imax mattered a lot here. As the first Japanese production filmed for Imax, it earned $12 million from those screens, about 40 percent of its domestic total. Overseas, it added $31.4 million, including $17 million in Japan.

Why is everyone talking about it?

Because of what came before. Godzilla Minus One opened in North America in December 2023 with just $11.4 million. It finished with $57.1 million there and went on to win the Oscar for best visual effects in 2024, a first for a Japanese film.

This time the debut is nearly three times bigger. The new film, directed again by Takashi Yamazaki, follows postwar Japan as it faces the three-headed monster Ghidorah and the possible return of Godzilla. Its reported budget is in the mid-teens of millions.

"Seeing our Godzilla welcomed with so much warmth and excitement by people all over the world... honestly feels like a dream," Yamazaki said.

And the rest of the weekend?

Warner Bros.' animated The Cat in the Hat opened to $20.5 million from 4,003 theaters, in line with the studio's own forecast. Earlier animated Dr. Seuss films did far better: The Grinch made $67.5 million and The Lorax $70.2 million. The new film cost $92 million and has a 46 percent critics score, though audiences gave it an A.

India's Ramayana: Rise of a Legend made about $8.6 million over the weekend, the widest North American launch ever for an Indian film. Faith-based drama Drummer Boy added $9.3 million.

Overall, the weekend brought in $121.7 million, up roughly 98 percent from last weekend, when studios avoided Halloween. The Cat in the Hat now needs strong word of mouth to last through Thanksgiving, with Disney's Hexed arriving on Nov. 25.