Godzilla Minus Zero Tracks $30 Million North America Opening, Nearly Triple the First Film

Godzilla Minus Zero is tracking toward a North American opening weekend of $30 million, according to the latest projections reported by Variety — nearly triple the $11.4 million domestic debut of its predecessor, Godzilla Minus One, in 2023. The sequel is expected to open across 3,254 theatres in North America on November 6, 2026, and the forecast puts it well ahead of its opening-weekend competition.

The data behind the projection underlines the jump. Fellow newcomer The Cat in the Hat is targeting second place with $20–25 million from 4,000 venues, while Wild Horse Nine is aiming for $5–7 million from 1,000 screens. Also in the frame is Ramayana: Rise of a Legend, the Indian epic distributed by Sony, which is projected to earn $6 million across its first four days from 1,300 theatres. Minus Zero opened in Japan on November 3 — Godzilla Day — with IMAX early-access screenings in North America the same week, ahead of its wide release.

Directed by Takashi Yamazaki, who returns as director, screenwriter and visual-effects lead, the film is set two years after Minus One, in 1949, as Japan’s fragile post-war recovery is shattered by Godzilla’s regeneration and a new monster threat. Its marketing has teased gold lightning and a roar that is not Godzilla’s — widely read as the signature of King Ghidorah, though Toho has not confirmed the rival monster. The film is also the first Japanese production ever filmed for IMAX, and its predecessor won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Read our report on the film’s India release date here: https://filmverse.in/godzilla-minus-zero-india-release-november-20-ramayana-imax/

Here is the Filmverse take: the tripling of the opening projection is the real headline. Minus One was a slow-burn, word-of-mouth phenomenon that grew into a global hit; Minus Zero arrives as a known blockbuster brand, and the tracking shows how far the North American ceiling for Japanese cinema has moved in three years. And there is a pleasing symmetry in the same weekend’s numbers: a Japanese kaiju sequel and an Indian epic, both chasing American screens at once, is a snapshot of how global the theatrical marketplace has become — and of how much of it now runs on spectacle that needs the biggest screen available.

Sources: Variety via ComingSoon, Toho and GKIDS — opening-weekend figures are trade projections, not actuals.