Godzilla Minus Zero is turning its opening weekend into a history lesson. Takashi Yamazaki's sequel earned about $14.5 million on Friday, according to Variety figures cited by Hollywood Outbreak, and it is now pacing toward a weekend near $32 million.
Deadline's Friday tally landed a little lower, at $13.5 million from 3,254 theaters, a total that includes the $6.7 million collected in Thursday night previews, The Main Street Mouse reported. Deadline's projection puts the three-day haul between $30 million and $33 million. Official studio estimates are expected Sunday.
A record start for a foreign-language film
A finish anywhere in that range would give the Toho production the biggest North American opening ever for a foreign-language live-action film, passing the $17.8 million that Hero posted in 2002. It would also be the largest debut in the history of GKIDS, the film's U.S. distributor. Moviegoers handed the film an A CinemaScore, matching the grade earned by Godzilla Minus One.
The jump from that 2023 film is steep. Godzilla Minus One opened to $11.4 million domestically on its way to $57 million, the highest total for a live-action Japanese film in North America, and $113 million worldwide, along with an Oscar for visual effects, Variety reported in its weekend preview. The new chapter picks up two years later in postwar Japan and is the first Japanese production filmed for IMAX, a format Variety expected it to lean on heavily.
Warner Bros.' animated The Cat in the Hat, with Bill Hader voicing the title character, is running a distant second. It earned about $6 million Friday and is projected near $18.7 million for the weekend, per Hollywood Outbreak. Deadline's range of $17 million to $20 million from 4,003 theaters falls below the $30 million-plus that early tracking had suggested.
Further down the chart, Searchlight's Wild Horse Nine, Martin McDonagh's dark comedy starring John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell as CIA officers sent to Easter Island on the eve of a military coup in Chile, took in about $2.47 million Friday. It is headed for roughly $5.5 million, with Deadline projecting $5 million to $6 million from 1,110 locations. That is a far wider launch than McDonagh's The Banshees of Inisherin, which began in limited release. Cup of Soul's TIFF review of Wild Horse Nine is available here. Sony's Ramayana: Rise of a Legend, at $2.4 million Friday and a projected $7.3 million, could still edge it in the final top five.
