Godzilla Minus Zero has opened in Japan like no live-action film before it. Toho announced that Takashi Yamazaki's sequel earned ¥910 million (about $5.7 million) on its first day, drawing more than 590,000 admissions — the biggest opening day for any live-action film in Japanese box office history, Japanese or foreign.
The record covers a single day's box office as tracked by Kogyo Tsushin, the industry's standard source. The film opened on Tuesday, November 3 in 448 theaters across Japan, 65 of them IMAX screens — and it did so on a date loaded with meaning: a national holiday, and the anniversary of the original Godzilla's 1954 release, celebrated as Godzilla Day.
Against its predecessor, the jump is dramatic. Godzilla Minus Zero's opening day came to 201% of the first day of Godzilla Minus One, which opened on the same date in 2023 and went on to become an Academy Award winner and a global phenomenon. Doubling the start of a film that beloved is the kind of launch that changes what a studio projects for the whole run.
Those projections now reach territory no Godzilla film has touched. The franchise's domestic record stands at about ¥8.25 billion, set by Shin Godzilla in 2016, and local forecasts put Minus Zero within reach of ¥10 billion (about $63 million) in Japan alone. The film's official account struck the same note when it shared the opening-day numbers, saying the film "is off to a strong start, with a chance to become the first in the Godzilla series to reach 10 billion yen at the box office," and thanking the crowds who turned out, inviting them back to see it again. A measure of caution applies: the opening day fell on a holiday.
Yamazaki returned to direct, write and supervise the visual effects, with Ryunosuke Kamiki and Minami Hamabe back in the cast. The sequel arrives with expectations Minus One never had to carry: that film was a sleeper that built word of mouth for months, while Minus Zero opened as an event.
That event status was built deliberately. Godzilla Minus Zero premiered at the New York Film Festival on September 26, weeks before its Japanese opening, and Toho and GKIDS have rolled it out as a franchise milestone rather than a routine sequel — premium formats, a Godzilla Day launch at home, and day-and-date anticipation across 23 international territories. The opening-day number is the first proof that the strategy is landing.
North America gets its turn this weekend. GKIDS opens Godzilla Minus Zero wide on Friday, November 6, and forecasts put its opening between $25 million and $30 million from more than 3,200 theaters, with a worldwide debut projected around $60 million — which would make it GKIDS' biggest theatrical opening ever, by a wide margin.
Source: Toho
