Godzilla Minus One Breaks Yet Another Box Office Record After Huge Opening Weekend

Godzilla Minus One continues to stomp the American box office, breaking a new record. The new movie, which follows Godzilla wreaking havoc in post-World War II Japan, is the 33rd Japanese-language Godzilla movie made by Toho and the 37th in the franchise overall. In addition to charting at No. 3 in the U.S. during its opening weekend, the movie broke multiple domestic box office records including earning the highest foreign-language opening weekend of the year and the highest domestic opening for a Japanese live-action movie ever.

Per Collider, the Godzilla Minus One release has broken another record at the domestic box office. On Monday, with a total gross of $1.2 million, the movie took the No. 1 slot above English-language blockbusters such as The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Napoleon, and Wish. This marks the first time that a foreign-language live-action movie has taken No. 1 during a single day in the U.S. since Jet Li’s Hero in 2004.

Godzilla Minus One’s Gigantic Success Explained

There are quite a few possible reasons the new Godzilla movie is performing so incredibly well at the domestic box office. First and foremost is the fact that it has received a wider release than any previous Japanese Godzilla movies of the modern era. Godzilla Minus One played in 2,308 theaters on its opening weekend, which is just above 2000’s Godzilla 2000: Millennium, which had 2,111, and considerably higher than 2016’s Shin Godzilla, which only played in 490.

Another factor in the movie’s domestic box office success would likely be the Godzilla Minus One reviews. With a 97% rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, it is the second highest-rated Godzilla movie of the entire franchise, just behind the 100% earned by 1995’s Godzilla vs. Destoroyah. However, the movie also benefitted from the timing of its domestic release on the post-Thanksgiving weekend.

Godzilla Minus One had the good fortune to open behind Napoleon and Wish, two mid-week Thanksgiving releases that had already been in theaters since the previous Wednesday in addition to posting huge week 2 drops. While the December 1 weekend was ultimately dominated by the concert movie Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, that movie’s wide release only takes place on weekends, clearing the runway for Godzilla to dominate during the weekdays.