It’s official, or at least as official as Hollywood’s Sunday estimates get. Godzilla Minus Zero took $31.6 million in the US and Canada on its opening weekend, from 3,254 cinemas. On Saturday it was only heading for the record. Now it has it: the biggest North American opening ever for a foreign-language live-action film, comfortably beating the $17.8 million that Zhang Yimou’s Hero managed back in 2004.
Takashi Yamazaki’s sequel opened at about 2.8 times the $11.4 million of Godzilla Minus One, which had itself caused a fair bit of spluttering in Burbank in 2023. Its nearest rival, Bill Hader’s The Cat in the Hat, took $20.5 million from 4,003 cinemas, so the subtitled atomic lizard beat Dr Seuss’s best-known feline by $11 million on nearly 750 fewer screens. There is a lesson here for studios, though we doubt they will learn it. Spend modestly, cast actors who look genuinely frightened, and let the monster be a monster.
The other non-Hollywood blockbuster of the weekend did better than Saturday’s forecasts too. Ramayana: Rise of a Legend, Nitesh Tiwari’s version of the Sanskrit epic, made $8.65 million in North America from just 1,433 cinemas. That put it fifth, a mere $212,847 behind You Can See Everything, and well above the $6–7 million projected on Saturday morning. Worldwide the two films are fighting their own kaiju-versus-gods battle. Deadline’s global round-up has Godzilla ahead at $63 million to Ramayana’s $55 million, though Ramayana’s figure is driven by India, where it is a phenomenon rather than a film.
The usual caveats apply. These are Sunday estimates, and Monday’s actuals can nudge a total up or down by a few hundred thousand dollars. A $31.6 million opening could slip a little, but not by $14 million, so the record is safe. The question now is the second weekend. Minus One became a word-of-mouth hit by holding remarkably well week after week, and Minus Zero has nearly a fortnight’s clear run before The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping arrives on 20 November.
For anyone who wants the background, our earlier report on the Japanese record and our review are still standing, which is more than can be said for most of Tokyo. Seventy-two years after he first came ashore, Godzilla has finally done what no amount of atomic breath ever managed: topped the American box office in his own language.
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