‘Godzilla Minus Zero’ Sets GKids Box Office Record With $31 Million Opening

GKids, Toho's American film distribution arm, has broken a new box office record with its adaptation of "Godzilla Minus Zero," which debuted with a staggering $31.6 million at the box office over its opening weekend across 3,254 locations. This impressive figure nearly triples the $11.4 million brought in by the kaiju sequel's predecessor, "Godzilla Minus One," released in December 2023.

The film also marks the fourth non-English film to reach the top spot on the U.S. weekend box office charts, surpassing the $13 million opening set by GKids for Hayao Miyazaki's "The Boy and the Heron" in 2023. Additionally, "Godzilla Minus Zero" is the second-highest opening for a live-action non-English film, trailing only "The Passion of the Christ," which opened to $83 million in 2004.

The film is on track to surpass the $57.1 million U.S. run of "Minus One," with strong word-of-mouth indicated by its A CinemaScore, and a perfect score of 90% from critics and 96% from audiences. Streaming site JustWatch notes that "Minus One" has become the most-watched film on a streaming platform this week, suggesting that viewers who may have missed the predecessor three years ago are eager to catch up with "Godzilla Minus Zero."

Coming in second place is Warner Bros. Pictures Animation's "The Cat in the Hat," with a domestic opening of $20.5 million and a global total of $30.5 million. Warner Bros. faces a challenging road to profitability, as the Dr. Seuss adaptation will need strong family audience reception to build momentum in the weeks ahead, particularly ahead of Thanksgiving when Disney's "Hexed" will also hit theaters.

Third place goes to Angel's "Drummer Boy," a musical drama about a Continental Army drummer boy during the Revolutionary War, which opened with a $9.3 million weekend from 2,850 locations. The film's success is driven by fans of the Christian pop duo King + Country, who directed and wrote the songs for the movie, exceeding pre-release projections for a $5 million launch.

Tightly contested for the fourth spot are A24's "You Can See Everything" and Sony's "Ramayana: Rise of a Legend," the latter of which debuted on Thursday. "You Can See Everything" continues its impressive run with an $8.8 million fourth weekend, bringing its cumulative domestic gross just shy of the $80 million mark, a feat usually achieved only by music or nature documentaries.

As for documentaries, Sony Pictures' "Ramayana: Rise of a Legend" is currently in fourth place with an $8.6 million four-day opening, just a couple of steps below the $14 million four-day opening of the Hindi action film "Dhurandar 2: The Revenge," which grossed $28.1 million in the U.S. earlier this year.