Godzilla Minus Zero has turned a Japanese-language sequel into the weekend’s top North American release and set a new benchmark for live-action foreign-language openings.
Toho announced on November 9 that the film opened at about $31.6 million across 3,254 North American theaters from November 6 to 8. Box Office Mojo’s title page and The Numbers now both list the opening at US$30,612,674, about US$30.6 million.
Either total is well ahead of the previous live-action foreign-language benchmark commonly attached to Zhang Yimou’s Hero, which Box Office Mojo lists with a $17.8 million domestic opening in 2004.
The record comes with a useful qualifier
Toho described the result as an all-time North American opening record for a foreign-language live-action film and said Godzilla Minus Zero ranked No. 1 at the North American box office on its opening weekend. The Associated Press also reported the record while flagging a caveat: The Passion of the Christ opened to $83.8 million in 2004, despite its largely non-English dialogue.
The live-action foreign-language opening record therefore depends on treating The Passion of the Christ separately.
A much wider launch than Minus One
Godzilla Minus One opened in the U.S. and Canada with $11.4 million from 2,308 theaters in December 2023 and finished with $57.1 million domestically, according to Box Office Mojo. It later won Best Visual Effects at the 96th Academy Awards.
Minus Zero opened in 3,254 theaters in North America, according to Toho and box-office trackers. Box Office Mojo’s current title page lists $32.7 million domestically through Monday, November 9, meaning the sequel had already earned more than half of Minus One’s entire domestic run after four days of tracked grosses.
Toho’s distribution bet
GKIDS announced earlier in 2026 that it would distribute Godzilla Minus Zero in North America after Toho acquired the company in 2024. Toho’s November 9 release said GKIDS handled North America, Anime Limited and Piece of Magic Entertainment handled different European markets, and Toho Entertainment Asia handled distribution work in parts of Asia as the company built a region-by-region international rollout.
Toho also said the film was released in more than 100 countries and territories. The company described the Japan and North America rollout as the first near-simultaneous release of its kind for a Japan-produced Godzilla film.
Premium screens amplified the opening
GKIDS said the film held Godzilla Day early-access screenings in IMAX on November 3 before its November 6 wide rollout, and described it as the first Japanese production filmed for IMAX. The Associated Press reported that IMAX generated $21.3 million globally for the film over the weekend, or about 34% of its box-office take.
What the opening says about the theatrical market
The record does not prove that every international release can suddenly play like a studio tentpole in North America. It does show that the ceiling for Japanese live-action releases is higher when several pieces line up at once: a known franchise, a direct sequel to an Oscar-winning hit, wide access, premium-format positioning, and a release window treated as global rather than secondary.
It also gives Toho an unusually strong North American base before the next Hollywood Godzilla entry arrives. The Associated Press noted that Warner Bros. and Legendary’s Godzilla x Kong: Supernova is scheduled for March 2027, putting Minus Zero in a rare position: a Japanese-language Godzilla film is now the immediate box-office comparison for the next English-language MonsterVerse release.
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