Godzilla Minus Zero Smashes Japan Opening-Day Record, Eyes $30 Million US Debut and $60 Million Global Opening

Godzilla Minus Zero has opened with a record-breaking roar. The sequel to Takashi Yamazaki’s Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One opened in Japan on November 3, Godzilla Day, selling 590,000 tickets for ¥910 million — around $5.75 million — on its first day. Toho confirmed it as the biggest opening day ever for any live-action film in Japan, foreign or domestic.

Japan’s three-day total reached ¥1.37 billion (roughly $8.7 million), with forecasts of a final total above ¥10 billion (about $63.2 million).

North America is next. The film opened in the US on Friday, November 6, across 3,254 theatres, with Variety projecting roughly $30 million for the opening weekend and Boxoffice Pro putting the range at $25–35 million. That would make it distributor GKIDS’ biggest debut ever, ahead of The Cat in the Hat ($20–25 million) — and the first Japanese Godzilla film ever to open at No. 1 in the US. Tracking puts the global opening at around $60 million. All figures are trade estimates.

Critics are on board too, with the film above 90 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, and Yamazaki has said he is “fifty-fifty” on a third film — a decision the box office will now make for him. The story picks up in 1949, two years after Minus One, as Japan struggles to rebuild and Godzilla returns with a new threat: the three-headed King Ghidorah, revealed in the final trailer.

For Indian audiences, the date to note is November 20, when the film arrives through PVR INOX Pictures — two weeks after its North American opening, after Ramayana’s two-week IMAX exclusivity window pushed it back. That puts Godzilla head-to-head with The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, both chasing the premium screens Ramayana is about to vacate. The November race is genuinely global: Ramayana has crossed Rs 221 crore worldwide in two days, and Godzilla is chasing a $60 million global opening in the same week.

The economics tell the real story. Minus One was made for just $15 million and grossed more than $110 million worldwide on its way to an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. If Minus Zero opens at three times its predecessor’s debut, it will prove again that this franchise’s advantage is not budget but craft — a Japanese-language film topping the American chart on scale and emotion alone. Our India release-date report: https://filmverse.in/godzilla-minus-zero-india-release-november-20-ramayana-imax/

Watch the official final trailer below:

Godzilla Minus Zero, written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, runs 135 minutes and is the first Japanese production ever filmed for IMAX.

Sources: Variety via Superhero Hype, Boxoffice Pro, Deadline via Fiction Horizon, ScreenRant, CGMagazine — all box-office figures are trade estimates.