Godzilla Minus Zero opens to an estimated $31.6m in North America

Godzilla Minus Zero opened at No. 1 in the United States and Canada over the weekend of 6–8 November with an estimated $31.6m from 3,254 cinemas, according to Sunday studio figures reported by Variety, IndieWire and TheWrap. The figures are studio estimates of gross box office; actuals are due on Monday 9 November.

Key facts

• Godzilla Minus Zero (Toho; GKids in the US and Canada): an estimated $31.6m from 3,254 cinemas, 6–8 November
• The Cat in the Hat (Warner Bros): an estimated $20m from 4,003 cinemas (TheWrap and Deadline: $20.5m)
• North American weekend total: an estimated $114m, up 86% on the same weekend in 2025, according to Variety, citing Rentrak
• Year-to-date North American gross: $8.6bn, 20% above the same point in 2025 (Rentrak, via Variety)
• Worldwide, Deadline puts Godzilla Minus Zero at about $63m and Ramayana: Rise of a Legend at $55.7m

Variety and IndieWire describe the opening as the largest in North America for a live-action foreign-language film, overtaking Zhang Yimou’s Hero, which began with $17.8m in 2002. TheWrap places Godzilla Minus Zero second among live-action non-English debuts, behind Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ ($83m in 2004, performed in Hebrew, Latin and Aramaic). The distinction is one of classification, not of the weekend’s takings.

The R-rated Toho sequel, written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, is the follow-up to 2023’s Godzilla Minus One, which opened to $11.4m and finished on about $57m in North America and $113m worldwide, as well as winning the visual effects Academy Award. Variety reports that this is the first Japanese production filmed for Imax, which contributed $12.7m, or 40% of the North American opening, and that premium large formats including Imax and Dolby accounted for 74% of ticket sales. The Odyssey, by comparison, took 53% of its opening-weekend business from those formats. CinemaScore gave the new film an A; Variety cites a 90% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Chance Huskey, GKids’ vice-president of distribution, told Variety: “We’re so happy to see audiences embrace Godzilla Minus Zero at an unprecedented scale for an international film. This landmark release is the result of a thoughtful campaign by Gkids and Toho that emphasized the ‘must-see’ intensity of the theatrical experience.” TheWrap says the $31.6m start is also GKids’ largest opening, ahead of the $13m launch of Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron in 2023.

In Japan the film opened on 3 November to more than ¥910m ($5.7m), a live-action single-day record. Deadline reports that it has since taken ¥2.7bn ($17m) there. The title is the commercial event Toho pointed to after a weaker first half.

Courtesy of Toho / Praesens press kit © 2026 TOHO

A soft wide opening for The Cat in the Hat

Warner Bros’ animated The Cat in the Hat, with Bill Hader voicing the title role, opened in second place. Variety and IndieWire put the weekend at $20m from 4,003 cinemas; TheWrap and Deadline have $20.5m. Either figure is a muted start on a larger screen count than Godzilla Minus Zero, and a per-cinema average of about $5,000 against about $9,700 for the Toho film (our calculation from Variety’s figures). Variety reports $10m from 60 markets outside North America, for a global start of $30.5m, and a production budget of $92m. CinemaScore gave the film an A; Variety cites a 45% Rotten Tomatoes score.

David A. Gross, publisher of the FranchiseRe newsletter, called it “a soft opening” but told Variety that family animation often earns more from digital, streaming and television licensing than it does in cinemas. The 2003 live-action adaptation opened to $38m and finished on $134m, against a budget of more than $100m, unadjusted for inflation. Variety contrasts the new film with later Dr. Seuss hits such as Universal and Illumination’s The Grinch, which opened to $67m in 2018.

The rest of the chart

Angel Studios’ Christian musical Drummer Boy opened third with an estimated $9.3m from 2,850 cinemas, above TheWrap’s account of pre-release expectations around $5m.

A24’s three-hour documentary You Can See Everything was the only holdover in the top five, with an estimated $8.8m from 2,473 cinemas in its fourth weekend and $79.8m to date in North America. Variety puts the production cost at $7m. The film shared the Halloween weekend lead with Clayface. TheWrap notes that Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 remains the only documentary outside the nature and concert categories to reach $100m in North America.

Sony’s Ramayana: Rise of a Legend, the first part of Nitesh Tiwari’s two-part adaptation of the Hindu epic, took an estimated $8.6m over Friday to Sunday and $12.1m across its first four days, Variety reports; Deadline has $12.2m for the four-day total. Sony is playing the film in 1,300 cinemas, which Variety calls the widest North American release for an Indian film. Variety puts the combined cost of the two parts at $500m; Deadline gives a range of $420m–$500m.

TheWrap fills in the next three places: Fathom and Laika’s Wildwood took an estimated $7m in its third weekend ($40m to date); Warner Bros and DC Studios’ Clayface took $6.7m in its third weekend ($56.6m in North America and $109m worldwide); and Searchlight’s Wild Horse Nine, Martin McDonagh’s CIA comedy-drama starring John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, opened to $6m from 1,100 cinemas. Variety matches that $6m figure and notes the larger initial footprint than McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin, which began in limited release and reached $10.5m in North America and $50m worldwide.

Further down, Variety reports that the faith-based biopic Jimmy, with KJ Apa as James Stewart, took $2.2m from 1,470 cinemas and finished 12th. In limited release, A24’s Club Kid made $390,583 from six screens ($65,097 per cinema) and Amazon MGM’s I Play Rocky, directed by Peter Farrelly, made $345,000 from seven ($49,200 per cinema). Both are due to widen around Thanksgiving.

A stronger weekend, and a global split

Variety, citing Rentrak, puts the North American weekend at $114m, up 86% from the same days in 2025, when Predator: Badlands led the chart, and year-to-date gross at $8.6bn, 20% ahead of 2025.

Outside North America the two big new titles traded places. Deadline estimates Godzilla Minus Zero at about $63m worldwide and Ramayana: Rise of a Legend at $55.7m, of which $32m came from India, $12.2m from the US and Canada over four days, and $11.5m from 37 other territories handled by Sony. Deadline says the film set opening records for an Indian title in the UK ($3.0m), Thailand ($550,000), the Netherlands ($240,000) and South Africa ($75,000), and also lists the United Arab Emirates ($2.2m) and Australia ($1.9m). It is booked, according to the same report, on more than 10,000 screens in over 130 countries and in 17 dubbed languages, with further openings through November. Deadline also reports that Imax took a combined $29m worldwide from the two films.

A press note cited by Deadline, claiming Ramayana: Rise of a Legend was the most-watched film in the world over Diwali with 11 million tickets sold, is not independently supported in that report and is not treated here as a verified figure.

Our reading

The weekend tests whether a Japanese-language, R-rated Toho Godzilla could expand well beyond the audience that found Godzilla Minus One after its opening. An estimated $31.6m, nearly triple the predecessor’s $11.4m start, with about three-quarters of sales in premium formats, points to a theatrical event rather than a specialised foreign-language run. How the trades classify that result against Hero and The Passion of the Christ matters less to Toho and GKids than whether the second weekend holds.

For Warner Bros, about $20m from more than 4,000 cinemas is a weak wide opening for a $92m family animation, even with a strong CinemaScore and the ancillary recovery Gross describes. Monday’s actuals will settle the small gaps between estimates: $20m or $20.5m for The Cat in the Hat, and $12.1m or $12.2m for Ramayana’s four-day North American total. The next evidence for Godzilla Minus Zero is the second-weekend hold in North America and whether Japan converts its day-one record into a long run; for Ramayana, it is the closing Diwali-week tally in India and the remaining November openings.

Sources

• Variety, 8 November 2026 (Sunday studio estimates; Rentrak market totals)
• IndieWire, 8 November 2026 (Sunday studio estimates; foreign-language opening comparison)
• TheWrap, 8 November 2026 (Sunday studio estimates; GKids and non-English opening comparisons)
• Deadline, 8 November 2026 (global weekend estimates for Godzilla Minus Zero and Ramayana)