Godzilla Minus Zero has won the North American box office with an estimated $32 million opening weekend, the biggest ever for a live-action foreign-language film in the United States and Canada. The figure, reported across weekend trade coverage, caps a Friday that trackers put at either $13.5 million, according to Deadline, or $14.5 million, according to TheWrap and other trackers — a disagreement of about $1 million that underlines how these are still industry estimates, with confirmed actuals due on Monday.
The film is the first Japanese Godzilla film ever to top a full North American weekend, according to SlashFilm, cited in the weekend coverage, and it is the biggest opening ever for distributor GKIDS. It also makes Minus Zero the first foreign-language film to reach number one in the United States since the Chainsaw Man movie, according to Box Office Watch.
Premium screens powered the win
IMAX and other premium large-format screens accounted for a remarkable 74 percent of the film’s weekend gross, according to Deadline’s reporting. That is an extraordinary share for any release, and it explains how a subtitled, R-rated sequel outperformed its own distributor’s expectations — GKIDS had been projecting an opening in the mid-$20 millions.
The film opened in 3,254 theatres in North America. Its Thursday previews took $6.7 million, and Friday’s total included those previews. The sequel is the first Godzilla film ever to carry an R rating, for violent content and bloody images, and it is the first Japanese production filmed for IMAX.
A record start in Japan too
Minus Zero opened in Japan on November 3, Godzilla Day, with ¥910 million — around $5.7 million — on day one, followed by a three-day total of ¥1.38 billion, about $8.7 million, a live-action record in Japan. Its Japanese running total has since reached $11.8 million, or ¥2.08 billion, according to Deadline’s weekend reporting.
The worldwide opening is tipped at around $60 million, with an India release still to come on November 20. The original Minus One grossed $115 million worldwide on a budget of just $15 million and won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, a first for the franchise.
What the record means
The opening nearly triples the $11.4 million domestic debut of Minus One in December 2023, which went on to take $57.1 million in North America. Box Office Watch had pegged Minus Zero at $25 million to $35 million for the weekend, with a domestic total between $70 million and $110 million — and the $32 million estimate lands squarely in that range.
For GKIDS, the result is transformative: the distributor’s previous biggest grosser was The Boy and the Heron at $47.3 million, and Minus Zero could pass that figure within two weekends. For Toho, it proves that a Japanese-language Godzilla film can win an American weekend outright. Final studio estimates land on Sunday, with confirmed actuals on Monday — but on any reading of the numbers, the monster has already made history.
