Godzilla Minus Zero Earns Record $32 Million in N. American Opening Weekend
Godzilla Minus Zero, the new Godzilla sequel film from Godzilla Minus One's Takashi Yamazaki, earned an estimated US$31.61 million at the North American box office in its opening weekend. A record 74% of that total came from premium large format screenings, with 40% or US$12 million from IMAX screenings. (It is the first Japanese film to meet the standard to advertise itself as "filmed for IMAX.")
This is the highest ever U.S. opening weekend for a GKIDS release (higher than The Boy and the Heron's US$13 million in 2023), as well as the highest one ever for a live-action foreign film. (The highest one for a foreign film is still the first Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle anime film with US$70.6 million, unadjusted for inflation, in September 2025. The English dub of Pokémon: The First Movie opened with US$50.8 million in its first five days in July 1998.)
Godzilla Minus Zero's global revenue stands at US$63 million after its opening weekend. Deadline reports it was the highest-grossing film in the world this past weekend.
The film earned 590,000 tickets for 910 million yen (about US$5.75 million) in Japan in its opening day alone, setting a new record for the highest opening day earnings for a live-action film (among both foreign and domestic live-action films) in Japan. The film had 201% higher opening day earnings than its predecessor Godzilla Minus One in Japan.
The film opened in Japan on Tuesday, November 3, which is "Godzilla Day" in Japan, celebrating the anniversary of the first Godzilla film's November 3, 1954 release. Godzilla Minus One similarly opened in Japan on November 3, 2023. (Godzilla Day fell on a Tuesday this year, but it is also the Japanese holiday known as Culture Day.)
The sequel is set in 1949, two years after the Godzilla Minus One film's story.
Min Tanaka (47 Ronin, live-action Rurouni Kenshin films) plays biologist Kanji Murakami. He joined returning cast members Ryūnosuke Kamiki (Koichi Shikishima), Minami Hamabe (Noriko Ōishi), and Hidetaka Yoshioka (Noda) from Godzilla Minus One. Also returning in the cast are Yūki Yamada (Shiro Mizushima), Kuranosuke Sasaki (Seiji Akitsu), Sakura Andō (Sumiko Ota), and Miō Tanaka (Tatsuo Ho tta).
Yamazaki returned as director, screenwriter, and VFX supervisor. Naoki Satō also returned to compose the music. Shirogumi Inc. handled the film's visual effects.
GKIDS and TOHO released the film in North America on Friday, November 6. This is the first time a Japan-produced Godzilla film opened in Japan and in North America in the same week.
In addition to opening in Japan and North America, it opened in the same week in Latin America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Australia, and New Zealand. The companies stated they would announce additional international release dates at a later time. TOHO acquired GKIDS in October 2024.
Godzilla Minus One has earned more than US$116 million worldwide. According to Box Office Mojo, the film has earned an estimated US$57,144,669 in the United States. The film was the third highest-grossing foreign-language film in the United States as of 2024.
Netflix is streaming the film and Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color, the black-and-white version of the film, worldwide on Netflix. In North America, Godzilla Minus One and Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color are additionally available for digital rental and digital purchase on Amazon, Apple iTunes, Google Play, Microsoft, FandangoNOW/VUDU, inDemand, XBOX, and Vubiquity. In Japan, the film is streaming exclusively (in color and monochrome) on Amazon Prime Video.
Godzilla Minus One won the Best Visual Effects award in the 96th Academy Awards in March 2024. The film is the first Japanese film to win in this category, and the first Godzilla film to be nominated for an Oscar.
Yamazaki's first English-language film Grandgear was originally slated to open on February 18, 2028, but Sony Pictures recently moved up its release date to January 14, 2028.
Sources: IndieWire (Brent Lang), Deadline (Anthony D'Alessandro), The Hollywood Reporter (Ryan Gajewski)
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.