Godzilla Minus Zero opens on ¥910m ($5.7m), a Japan live-action day record

Godzilla Minus Zero (ゴジラ－0.0), Takashi Yamazaki’s sequel to Godzilla Minus One, opened in Japan on Monday 3 November with more than ¥910 million ($5.7m) in ticket sales and more than 590,000 admissions on its first day, Toho said on Tuesday, according to Nikkan Sports and Eiga.com. Kogyo Tsushin (興行通信社) ranks that single-day gross as the highest opening day for any live-action film in Japan, domestic or imported. Dollar figures use the Frankfurter/ECB mid-market JPY–USD rate of 0.0063176 on 3 November, the opening day.

Key facts

• Opening day (3 Nov 2026): more than ¥910m ($5.7m), more than 590,000 admissions (Toho)
• Record: highest opening-day gross among all live-action films in Japan (Kogyo Tsushin, via Eiga.com / Nikkan Sports)
• Vs predecessor: about 201% of Godzilla Minus One’s opening-day gross; that film’s career total was ¥76.5bn
• Release: Toho, Japan 3 Nov; North America 6 Nov; about 100 countries and territories planned
• ¥10bn (100億円) series first: Toho/press ambition on this start, not a reported cumulative

The day gives Toho the theatrical event it flagged when half-year operating profit fell 25% to ¥30.9bn ahead of this release. It also sits in a Japan market where local franchises and event titles still set the pace, as Resident Evil did earlier this autumn and as Japan’s record anime market continues to expand off-screen. More Japan charts sit in Box Office.

Courtesy of Toho / Praesens press kit © 2026 TOHO

The film and the comparison

Yamazaki again directs, writes and oversees VFX. The story picks up two years after Godzilla Minus One, which opened on 3 November 2023 and finished on ¥76.5bn. Returning cast includes Ryunosuke Kamiki and Minami Hamabe, with Masami Nagasawa among the new additions; King Ghidorah appears in the new film. Runtime on the Swiss distributor Praesens sheet is 135 minutes.

Toho and the Japanese trades put the opening day at about 201% of the previous film’s first-day gross. That is a day-to-day comparison, not a share of the predecessor’s ¥76.5bn career total. Eiga.com and Nikkan Sports both state that Kogyo Tsushin ranks the day first among opening days for all live-action titles in Japan, Japanese and foreign. Animation day-one records are outside that claim.

Coverage also frames the start as one that could chase the first ¥10 billion (100億円, about $63m) for any film in the Godzilla series. That language is Toho and press ambition on the strength of day one (“狙える” / positioned to aim for), not a reported cumulative or a locked forecast. The series is in its 31st film by Nikkan Sports’ count from the 1954 original.

What comes next

North America opens on Friday 6 November, with a wider rollout across about 100 countries and territories still to come. Japan’s next printed weekend and cumulative updates from Kogyo Tsushin and Toho will show whether the day-one spike holds screens against the rest of the November slate. Until those prints land, the verified hard facts remain the Toho day-one money and admissions, the Kogyo Tsushin live-action day ranking, and the 201% day-one comparison with Godzilla Minus One.

Our reading

A live-action day-one record is a real commercial event for Toho, but one day does not yet re-rate the franchise’s ceiling. Buyers watching Japan should separate three numbers: the verified ¥910m day, the Kogyo Tsushin ranking (scope: live-action opening days only), and the ¥10bn series target, which is still aspiration. The next evidence that would settle the opening’s strength is the first full weekend print and the early North American gross after 6 November; a hold above half of day one into the Japanese weekend would mark a base rather than a holiday spike alone.

Sources

• Toho / Nikkan Sports, Godzilla -0.0 opening-day statement (¥910m / 590,000 admissions; 4 Nov 2026)
• Eiga.com (映画.com), Godzilla -0.0 opening-day live-action record; Kogyo Tsushin cited (4 Nov 2026)
• Frankfurter / ECB cross rate JPY→USD (3 Nov 2026: 0.0063176)
• Toho official site, Godzilla -0.0 (cast, staff, release)