Godzilla Minus Zero Opening Weekend Box Office: A Subtitled Sequel Is Favoured to Beat the Cat

The Godzilla Minus Zero opening weekend box office race should not, on paper, be close. One film is a Japanese-language sequel playing in about 3,250 North American cinemas. The other is a Warner Bros. family animation opening in roughly 4,000. Yet tracking puts the kaiju ahead. Godzilla Minus Zero is forecast to take between $25 million and $30 million in North America, with more than $30 million expected from 23 international territories and a worldwide opening above $60 million (Business Today). The Wrap puts the domestic forecast higher still, at $30–35 million (The Wrap).

Godzilla Minus Zero opening weekend box office starts with a record day in Japan

The sequel opened in Japan on 3 November, coinciding with Godzilla Day, earning approximately $5.7 million and drawing more than 590,000 moviegoers on its first day — a figure Toho described as a record opening day for a live-action film in Japan, and 201% higher than the first-day takings of Godzilla Minus One (Business Today). The film is projected to earn more than ¥10 billion in Japan over its run (Business Today).

Directed by Takashi Yamazaki, it arrives with goodwill most sequels would envy. Godzilla Minus One, made on a reported $10 million budget, collected $113.9 million worldwide, including $48.2 million in Japan, and won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 2024 (Business Today). In the US and Canada it made $57.1 million, becoming the first Godzilla film to win an Oscar (The Wrap). Its opening, though, was modest: $11.4 million, in third place. Minus Zero is expected to roughly triple that (The Wrap).

Critics are helping. Business Today put the film at an 89% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of reporting (Business Today), while The Wrap reported 91% and Box Office Watch reported 95% from its festival reviews — scores moving as reviews accumulate, all of them strongly positive (The Wrap; Box Office Watch).

Godzilla Minus Zero vs Cat in the Hat box office is a test for Warner animation

If the forecasts hold, Godzilla Minus Zero would become just the fourth non-English-language film to top the US weekend chart, and a $25–30 million opening would give distributor GKIDS its biggest theatrical debut to date, surpassing The Boy and the Heron’s $13 million opening in 2023 (The Wrap; Business Today).

The loser in that scenario is The Cat in the Hat. Warner Bros. Pictures Animation’s adaptation, with Bill Hader voicing the Cat, is projected at around $20 million domestically from approximately 4,000 cinemas by Business Today (Business Today), and at $20–22 million against a reported budget of nearly $100 million by The Wrap (The Wrap). Box Office Watch is kinder, predicting a $30–40 million opening and a $110–150 million total, noting the film has the family lane to itself until Thanksgiving (Box Office Watch). The spread between those forecasts is the story: nobody is sure what a revived Warner animation brand is worth yet.

Ramayana Rise of a Legend opening weekend could scramble the global chart

The wild card is not American at all. Ramayana: Rise of a Legend, directed by Nitesh Tiwari and based on the Sanskrit epic attributed to Valmiki, carries a reported two-part production budget of between $420 million and $500 million, making it India’s most expensive film project to date (Business Today). Forecasts for its worldwide opening range from $30 million to more than $75 million — a gap so wide it amounts to an admission that the models don’t know.

In North America it opens in 1,300 locations, the widest theatrical release for an Indian production in the region, with about $6 million expected over four days (Business Today). Box Office Watch reckons a $12 million-plus start would set a new high for Indian cinema in North America, past Baahubali 2’s $10.4 million (Box Office Watch). Its early critical reception, at 40% on Rotten Tomatoes from 10 reviews, is the weak spot in an otherwise enormous launch (Business Today).

Analysis: November has no $100 million opener this year, and Box Office Watch expects the month to finish down on 2025, when four frames did $766 million (Box Office Watch). A quiet month is exactly when a film like Minus Zero can take a weekend outright — premium screens, a fanbase that shows up on day one, and reviews that give the curious a reason to risk subtitles. Whether it holds for a second weekend is a different question, and the honest answer arrives on Sunday night, not in anyone’s tracking model.

Photo: Eden, Janine and Jim, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Sources

1. https://www.businesstoday.com.my/2026/11/05/godzilla-minus-zero-faces-ramayana-in-november-box-office-race/
2. https://www.thewrap.com/creative-content/movies/godzilla-minus-zero-cat-in-the-hat-box-office-tracking/
3. https://boxofficewatch.com/analysis/november-2026-preview