Godzilla Minus Zero Stomps the Box Office, and Cat in the Hat Felt It
The Cat in the Hat had a lovely Friday. Godzilla had a historic one.
Godzilla Minus Zero is having the kind of opening weekend most kaiju can only dream about. The film earned $13.5 million on Friday, including $6.7 million from Thursday previews, and it is now tracking for a $30 million to $33 million domestic debut, according to Deadline's numbers (ComicBookMovie).
That would give Takashi Yamazaki's follow-up to Godzilla Minus One the biggest domestic opening ever for a live-action foreign-language film.
How did audiences rate Godzilla Minus Zero?
Audiences gave the movie an A CinemaScore, which is rare for a non-English, R-rated film. It also ties the best audience grade in the franchise, matching Godzilla Minus One and Godzilla vs. Kong. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire earned an A- (Fiction Horizon).
Critics are on board too, since the film sits at a Certified Fresh 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, and its audience Popcornmeter is even higher at 96% (ComicBookMovie).
How does it compare to Godzilla Minus One?
The jump is huge. Godzilla Minus One opened to $11 million in the US in 2023 and finished with $57.1 million domestically, then won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects (Fiction Horizon).
Minus Zero is playing in 3,254 theaters, and its Friday alone already beat Minus One's entire opening weekend. It's also the first R-rated Godzilla movie and the first Japanese production filmed for IMAX.
How is The Cat in the Hat doing?
Warner Bros. Animation's The Cat in the Hat is the weekend's other big new release. It made $5 million on Friday and is projected to open between $17 million and $20 million. Critics weren't kind to it, but families gave it an A CinemaScore as well (ComicBookMovie).
The new arrivals are pushing everything else down the chart. DC Studios' Clayface, now in its third weekend, appears to have dropped out of the top five, and it has earned just over $90 million worldwide against a reported $130 million break-even point.
What does this mean for a third Godzilla movie?
Yamazaki said this week that he is "fifty-fifty" on directing a third film (Church of Nerds). A record opening like this one makes that conversation a lot easier for Toho.
My read is that this weekend proves Minus One wasn't a fluke. American audiences are showing up for an R-rated, Japanese-language monster movie in huge numbers, and that should encourage more studios to bring films like this to US theaters. (The Statue of Liberty, meanwhile, would like everyone to stop sending Godzilla to New York.)
Have you seen Godzilla Minus Zero yet? Tell us what you thought in the comments.
