The King is back — and this time he brought receipts. Godzilla Minus Zero just stomped its way to the top of the North American box office, earning an estimated $31.6 million in its opening weekend and setting a brand-new record: the biggest opening ever for a live-action foreign-language film in North America. Not bad for a monster who is 72 years old.
Directed by Takashi Yamazaki and produced by Toho, the film is the sequel to 2023's Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One — and it is already outpacing its predecessor by a mile. Minus One opened to about $11.4 million in North America before finishing its run at roughly $57.1 million. Minus Zero nearly tripled that opening in a single weekend, and it has not even slowed down yet.
The worldwide picture is just as wild. The film has pulled in an estimated $63 million globally, including around $17 million in Japan, where it opened on November 3 to mark the franchise's 72nd anniversary. It opened in North America on November 6, distributed by GKIDS, and claimed the number one spot ahead of Warner Bros.' animated The Cat in the Hat, which debuted with $20.5 million.
Here is the part that makes Hollywood executives sweat: Godzilla Minus Zero reportedly cost less than $20 million to make. That is a fraction of what most blockbusters spend on catering, let alone CGI. Toho delivered a towering, terrifying kaiju epic on a budget that would barely cover a single action sequence in a typical superhero movie — and audiences rewarded it with the biggest opening weekend the franchise has ever seen in North America.
The story returns to post-World War II Japan, following the Shikishima family as they face a new catastrophe after their first encounter with the King of the Monsters. It is the same grounded, human-first approach that made Minus One a phenomenon: the monster is massive, but the movie never forgets the people running from him.
What does this mean for the rest of us? For starters, expect the conversation about what a blockbuster has to cost to get a whole lot louder. And if you have not seen it yet, get to a theater — this is the kind of movie that hits different with a crowd, a giant screen, and a theater full of people cheering every time that dorsal fin lights up.
Have you seen Godzilla Minus Zero yet? Tell us your favorite kaiju moment in the comments — and stay tuned to The Nerd's List for more box office shake-ups as the year winds down.
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