GKids, the American film distributor subsidiary of Toho, has set a new company box office record with “Godzilla Minus Zero,” which is leading the box office with a $31.6 million opening weekend from 3,254 locations.
That is nearly triple the $11.4 million opening of the kaiju sequel’s December 2023 predecessor “Godzilla Minus One” and makes it the fourth non-English film to reach No. 1 on the U.S. weekend box office charts. The film has also made $31 million overseas, including $17 million in its home country of Japan, where it opened on Nov. 3 in timing with the 72nd anniversary of the release of the original “Godzilla.”
For GKids, this passes the $13 million opening record it set in 2023 with Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron.” It is also the second highest opening for a live-action non-English film behind only “The Passion of the Christ,” which was performed in Hebrew, Latin and Aramaic and opened to $83 million in 2004.
With this start, “Godzilla Minus Zero” is well on pace to pass the $57.1 million U.S. run of “Minus One,” as it is enjoying excellent word-of-mouth with an A on CinemaScore and 90% critics and 96% audience scores.
On top of this, streaming site JustWatch says that “Minus One” has become the most-watched film on any streaming platform this week, signaling that “Minus Zero” might avoid a frontloaded run thanks to moviegoers who may have missed its predecessor three years ago but are looking to get caught up.
Taking second is Warner Bros. Pictures Animation’s “The Cat in the Hat” with a $20.5 million domestic and $30.5 million global opening. While on par with studio projections, it is well shy of the $67.5 million opening of Universal/Illumination’s “The Grinch” from the same early November release slot in 2018.
It’s another uphill battle for Warner Bros. to turn a theatrical profit as the $92 million-budgeted Dr. Seuss adaptation will have to lean on strong reception from family audiences to leg out in the weeks ahead and build up interest among parents and kids ahead of Thanksgiving, when it will face competition from Disney’s “Hexed.”
The film has an A on CinemaScore with its highest marks coming from kids and from audiences over 50, the latter of whom are most familiar with Dr. Seuss’ books. Word-of-mouth from those demos will be essential to the legs of “Cat” as families get more and more time to go out to the movies over the course of November and December.
Warner will also be looking for steady overseas numbers for “Cat in the Hat” in the weeks ahead, as it will have a steady international rollout, including key releases in the UK, France, Japan, and Australia.
In third is Angel’s “Drummer Boy,” a musical drama about a Continental Army drummer boy during the Revolutionary War that has earned a $9.3 million opening weekend from 2,850 locations. Fans of the Christian pop duo King + Country, who directed the film and wrote its songs, drove turnout for this title above pre-release projections for a $5 million launch.
Just behind “Drummer Boy” in a tight race for the No. 4 spot are A24’s “You Can See Everything” and Sony’s “Ramayana: Rise of a Legend,” the latter of which had its opening day on Thursday.
“You Can See Everything” is continuing its remarkable run with an $8.8 million fourth weekend, making it the only holdover currently in the top 5. With a cume just shy of $80 million, the acclaimed documentary is chasing the $100 million milestone that is usually only reached by music or nature documentaries like “March of the Penguins.” To date, Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” is the only documentary not in those categories to reach $100 million domestic.
Sony Pictures’ “Ramayana: Rise of a Legend,” the first part of a two-part Indian epic that has earned a $8.6 million 3-day/$12.1 million 4-day opening. That puts it just a couple steps below the $14 million 4-day opening of Hindi action film “Dhurandar 2: The Revenge,” which grossed $28.1 million in the U.S. earlier this year.
Fathom/Laika’s “Wildwood” is in sixth with $7 million in its third weekend, bringing its domestic total to $40 million as it is set to pass the $48 million unadjusted total of Laika’s 2016 film “Kubo and the Two Strings.”
Warner Bros./DC Studios’ “Clayface” is in seventh with $6.7 million in its third weekend, bringing it to a total of $56.6 million domestic and $109 million worldwide against a $40 million budget. It’s a modest theatrical success for Warner and DC, but it is already showing signs of running out of steam at the box office.
In eighth is Searchlight’s new release “Wild Horse Nine,” the CIA tragicomic thriller from Martin McDonagh which has earned a $6 million opening from 1,100 locations. Instead of a limited release like with past McDonagh films, Searchlight has given this title starring John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell a targeted wide opening that will push it past the $10.5 million domestic run of McDonagh’s “The Banshees of Inisherin” but likely fall short of the $54.5 million of “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” in 2017.
More to come…
