Godzilla Minus Zero Box Office: Record $31.6M Opening

Three years after Godzilla Minus One became a surprise hit and won Japan its first visual effects Oscar, its sequel did something no live-action subtitled movie had done in North America. Godzilla Minus Zero didn't just win the weekend. It beat a heavily marketed Dr. Seuss cartoon by more than $11 million, and it did it mostly on the biggest, most expensive screens in the building.

Searches for "Godzilla Minus Zero box office" and "Cat in the Hat box office" jumped Sunday as studio estimates came in. So did searches for "You Can See Everything box office," because A24's unlikely documentary hit kept climbing in its fourth weekend.

Weekend box office top 8 (Nov. 6-8, 2026)

Sunday studio estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo. Final numbers come out Monday and can shift. Ramayana's total includes Thursday previews.

How Godzilla Minus Zero broke the record

The previous high for a live-action foreign-language opening in North America was Hero, the Chinese martial arts film that opened with $17.8 million in 2004. Minus Zero nearly doubled it. The Hollywood Reporter notes that The Passion of the Christ, in Aramaic, Hebrew and Latin, opened far bigger that same year, but it's treated as an American production. The animated Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle still holds the overall foreign-language mark with $70.6 million last year.

The opening was also nearly three times Godzilla Minus One's $11.4 million debut in December 2023. That film went on to $57.1 million domestically. GKids, the Toho-owned distributor, called it the best opening in its history. Its previous high was $13 million for Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron.

Premium screens did the heavy lifting. Variety reported that large formats, IMAX and Dolby among them, made up 74% of ticket sales. For comparison, The Odyssey got 53% of its opening from those screens.

Takashi Yamazaki returns as director, with Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe and Min Tanaka starring in a story set in postwar Japan that brings in the three-headed Ghidorah. THR puts the budget in the mid-teens of millions, which makes this opening very profitable for an R-rated subtitled sequel. GKids had expected something in the mid-$20 millions.

Why The Cat in the Hat came in soft

Bill Hader voices the Cat in Warner Bros. Pictures Animation's new take on the 1957 book, with Matt Berry, Quinta Brunson and Xochitl Gomez in the cast. The $20.5 million start matched the studio's own projection. Next to recent Dr. Seuss hits, though, it's small: Illumination's The Lorax opened with $70.2 million in 2012.

Critics were lukewarm, with a Rotten Tomatoes score in the mid-40s, while audiences rated it far higher. It took in just $10 million from 60 overseas markets, and about half of its international release is still to come. Its next big test is Thanksgiving, when Disney's Hexed arrives on Nov. 25 and families have a new choice.

You Can See Everything nears $80 million

The Elizabeth Holmes documentary from Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim dropped only 22.6% even after losing 770 theaters. It was No. 1 just last weekend. Back when it ran second to Clayface in late October, $80 million looked like a stretch for a nearly three-hour documentary.

It has now passed March of the Penguins ($77 million) and sits behind only Fahrenheit 9/11 among non-concert documentaries in North America, according to Variety. Concert films such as Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour and Michael Jackson's This Is It earned far more. At A24, only this summer's Backrooms ($197 million) and 2025's Marty Supreme ($96 million) have grossed more domestically.

The film hasn't opened in most overseas markets yet. A staggered international rollout starts at the end of November, which is where it would have to make up ground if it's going to challenge Fahrenheit 9/11's $222 million worldwide.

The other openers

• Drummer Boy, Angel Studios' Revolutionary War musical drama from Ben and Joel David Smallbone, had a strong start in third place and earned an A CinemaScore.
• Ramayana: Rise of a Legend, the first of a two-part Indian epic, had the widest domestic launch ever for an Indian film. It added $32 million in India.
• Wild Horse Nine, Martin McDonagh's 1973-set comedy thriller with John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell and Steve Buscemi, started its awards push in 1,100 theaters.
• Club Kid, A24's Cannes pickup from writer-director-star Jordan Firstman, posted the weekend's best per-screen average: $65,097 on six screens.

What opens next weekend

Domestic ticket sales for 2026 stand at $8.625 billion, about 20.6% ahead of the same point last year, according to THR. Next weekend brings Johnny Depp's Ebenezer, the heist comedy How to Rob a Bank and Paper Tiger. With word of mouth this strong and premium screens still booked, Godzilla Minus Zero has a real chance to hold No. 1 for a second weekend.