Godzilla Minus Zero has stomped its way to the top of the worldwide box office, taking an estimated $63 million in its opening weekend and setting a new record for a live-action foreign-language film in North America.
The Japanese monster epic, directed by Takashi Yamazaki, earned $31.6 million across the United States and Canada in its first three days in wide release, according to figures from Rentrak reported by Variety and Entertainment Weekly. It opened in 3,254 theatres in North America on 6 November, with the rest of the world adding about $31.4 million to take the global total to roughly $63 million.
The North American debut is the biggest opening ever for a live-action foreign-language film in the territory, a record that had stood for more than two decades. It is also the largest opening in the history of distributor GKIDS, comfortably passing the $13 million debut of The Boy and the Heron in 2023. The film finished ahead of Warner Bros.' The Cat in the Hat, which took around $17-20 million in second place.
The scale of the result is even more striking when set against the film's cost. Reports put the production budget at under $20 million, with estimates ranging from about $13 million to $19 million, meaning the film earned more than three times its reported budget in a single weekend. For comparison, its predecessor, 2023's Godzilla Minus One, opened to just over $11 million in North America before going on to collect about $114 million worldwide and win the Academy Award for best visual effects, the first Oscar ever won by a Godzilla film.
Japan, where the film opened on 3 November, the anniversary of the original 1954 Godzilla, has been just as enthusiastic. It took about $5.7 million on its opening day there, the biggest opening day ever for a live-action film in Japan, and has now collected around $17 million in its home market. Toho, the studio behind the franchise, said the opening day was more than double the opening day of Minus One.
Premium screens played a major part in the haul. IMAX showings generated about $21.3 million worldwide, roughly a third of the film's total opening weekend, setting a record for the biggest global IMAX opening for a Japanese film. The film has been released in regular cinemas and IMAX in Japan, North America and the United Kingdom, with an India release set for 20 November.
Critics and audiences have been almost as generous as the box office. The film holds a 90 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes from more than 160 reviews, an A CinemaScore from opening-weekend audiences and a 96 per cent Popcornmeter rating, suggesting strong word of mouth that could carry it well beyond its opening weekend.
The weekend also produced a notable head-to-head at the top of the global chart. India's Ramayana: Rise of a Legend, which had been the story of the weekend in its home market, took about $55 million worldwide over the same period, leaving Godzilla ahead globally despite Ramayana's far larger reported budget of around $210 million, roughly ten times what Godzilla Minus Zero is reported to have cost.
Minus Zero is the sequel to Minus One, which followed a disgraced kamikaze pilot rebuilding his life in post-war Japan as Godzilla emerges from the sea. The new film continues the story, and its success confirms that the grounded, human-scale approach Yamazaki brought to the franchise has found an audience far beyond Japan, with subtitled screenings drawing crowds in North America that few foreign-language films have ever managed.
The opening also underlines a wider shift in what travels at the box office. A Japanese-language film with no Hollywood stars, released with subtitles and a modest budget, has beaten every English-language rival in the world's biggest market, and done so in a year when the North American box office has been searching for surprises. The weekend's total takings were the highest since late September.
What comes next will be watched closely. The film has already earned more than half of its predecessor's entire worldwide total in three days, and with strong reviews, premium-screen momentum and further markets still to open, including India, it has a clear run at becoming the highest-grossing Japanese live-action film ever released in North America. Figures in this report were checked at 21:55 PKT on 09 November 2026 against reports from Variety, Entertainment Weekly and The Week.
