'Godzilla Minus Zero' heads for record foreign-language opening
Seven Lights
“Godzilla Minus Zero,” the Toho sequel distributed in North America by Gkids, is tracking for an opening weekend of $30 million to $33 million, a level that would mark the biggest debut for a live-action foreign-language film at the domestic box office.
The film earned $13.5 million on Friday, its first day, at 3,254 theaters, a total that included $6.7 million in preview showings, Deadline reported. IndieWire put the previews at $6.7 million and placed the result well ahead of the $3.5 million in previews taken by the Indian release “Ramayana.”
The figure would also be the largest opening in Gkids’ history as a distributor. Its 2023 release “Godzilla Minus One,” also written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, debuted to $11.4 million. That film won the Academy Award for visual effects and went on to earn $57 million in the United States and Canada and $113 million worldwide, setting the benchmark for Japanese films in North America.
“Godzilla Minus Zero” is the first Godzilla film rated R. SlashFilm reported the rating reflects realistic war violence, including a flashback in which Kanji Murakami, played by Min Tanaka, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, finds the charred remains of his family. Every earlier Godzilla film had been rated PG-13 or lower; the association had generally treated monster-on-monster violence as impossible to emulate in real life, a rationale the war imagery of the new film undid.
IndieWire reported that “Minus Zero” opened to a 90 percent positive rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Its closest newcomer, Warner Bros. Animation’s “The Cat in the Hat,” earned $1 million in previews and was expected to debut near $20 million against an $86 million production cost.
Weekend estimates will firm Saturday. If the $30 million floor holds, the sequel will have more than doubled its predecessor’s debut and set a new distributor benchmark for Gkids.