'Godzilla Minus Zero' opens to a record $31.6 million for a foreign-language film
Seven Lights
“Godzilla Minus Zero” opened to $31.6 million at North American box offices over the weekend, the largest debut ever for a live-action foreign-language film in the United States and Canada, industry tallies showed Sunday.
The Japanese production, released by GKIDS, finished first for the weekend, well ahead of the new “Cat in the Hat” film, which placed second with $20.5 million, Vulture reported. That debut ran slightly ahead of its own tracking but fell far short of the 2012 opening for “The Lorax,” the same author’s animated adaptation. IndieWire said the Godzilla opening broke the previous foreign-language record, set by the wuxia epic “Hero,” which began with $17.8 million.
Two non-English-language films placed in the top five in the same weekend, a rarity at the North American box office. The Indian epic “Ramayana: Rise of a Legend” ranked fifth domestically with $8.65 million after earning $3.5 million in previews, and opened to $55.7 million around the world. Angel Studios’ “Drummer Boy,” an American Revolution musical, took third place.
“Godzilla Minus Zero” earned a further $31.4 million outside North America, including $17 million in Japan, for a global opening of about $63 million. It outdrew “Ramayana” worldwide. It had taken $6.7 million in preview showings before its release, and tracking in the low $30 million range proved accurate.
Takashi Yamazaki directed, as he did 2023’s “Godzilla Minus One,” the latest franchise line’s earlier entry, which opened to $11.4 million in North America and won the Academy Award for visual effects. IndieWire said the new result continued a year of unlikely box-office successes. Toho produced the film, the latest entry in the franchise the studio created in 1954. The foreign-language opening record had stood since 2002.
The debut gave the franchise its largest North American opening and set a new benchmark for non-English-language releases in the United States and Canada.