The year of unlikely box office smashes continues as “Godzilla Minus Zero” opened to a thunderous $31.6 million, shattering records to become the biggest North American debut for a live-action foreign language film in history. It easily toppled the previous benchmark established in 2002 by the wuxia epic “Hero,” which kicked off with $17.8 million. Globally, “Godzilla Minus Zero’s” haul stands at $63 million.
And it comes on the heels of a string of films that have defied conventional wisdom to resonate with moviegoers. Yes, the box office is still dominated by sequels and comic book movies like “Toy Story 5” and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” but there’s been a lot more variety. Audiences have turned out in force for an original sci-fi adventure (“Project Hail Mary,” $684.6 million worldwide); a pair of low-budget horror films from 20-something auteurs with YouTube pedigree (“Obsession,” $524.3 million worldwide; “Backrooms,” $400.6 million worldwide); an adaptation of a Greek epic we were all forced to read in school (“The Odyssey,” $1.8 billion worldwide), and a three-hour documentary about a Silicon Valley cheat (“You Can See Everything,” $73.7 million and counting). Clearly, people are looking for something different.
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In the case of “Godzilla Minus Zero,” it helped that the first film, 2023’s “Godzilla Minus One,” was an unexpected sleeper hit, grossing an impressive $57.1 million. But the first “Godzilla” opened to a mere $11.4 million, showing that the audience for the first monster movie grew on home entertainment. “Godzilla Minus Zero” is poised to bypass its predecessor to become the highest-grossing live-action Japanese movie in history. Once again, the film was directed by Takashi Yamazaki, who also worked on the special effects, produced by Japan’s Tojo, and distributed in the U.S. by GKids.
The success of “Godzilla Minus Zero” also demonstrates that subtitles are no barrier to box office success, something that Netflix and other streamers discovered with the popularity of local-language programming like “Squid Game,” “Money Heist,” and “Lupin.” The story at multiplexes is no different. U.S. audiences have filled auditoriums to watch “Parasite” ($53.8 million domestic),
“Ne Zha 2” ($23.2 million domestic), and “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle” ($136.9 million domestic). The outsized grosses for “Godzilla Minus Zero” probably mean we haven’t heard the last of the fire-breathing Kaiju.
The monster movie made quick work of its main competition, Warner Bros. Animation’s “The Cat in the Hat,” which stumbled with $20 million domestically and $30 million globally. The family film cost $92 million to produce and extends a string of misses for Warner Bros., which was recently purchased by Skydance. Insiders say that the studio has lost hundreds of millions of dollars on bombs like “Digger,” “Supergirl,” and “The Bride!” and “The Cat in the Hat” won’t do much to mop up all that red ink.