A Subtitled Godzilla Film Could Win the U.S. Weekend. It's Happened Only Three Times Before.
"Godzilla Minus Zero" is tracking at $30–35 million for its domestic opening — roughly triple "Minus One" — which would make it only the fourth non-English-language film ever to top the U.S. box office.
The favourite this weekend is a cartoon cat. The interesting number belongs to the lizard. Godzilla Minus Zero, Toho's follow-up to Godzilla Minus One, is projected by TheWrap to open between $30 and $35 million domestically, with IMAX support — and if it lands at the top of that range with the rest of the field cooperating, it wins the weekend, which would put it in a club with three members.
Only three non-English films have ever opened at No. 1 in the U.S.
Per TheWrap's tracking report, the only non-English-language films to have opened at No. 1 in the United States are The Passion of the Christ (2004, $83.8 million — substantially an Aramaic and Latin film, and one of the biggest openings of its era), Hero (2004, $18 million) and Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle (September 2025, $70.6 million). Two of the three are more than twenty years old. The barrier was never quality — the assumption was that American audiences won't read subtitles in a cinema. The third member joined fourteen months ago, which suggests the assumption is retiring in real time.
"Minus Zero" is tracking at roughly triple the opening of "Minus One"
Minus One opened in 2023 to $11.4 million, in third place behind Beyoncé's Renaissance concert film — a modest start that word of mouth turned into $57.1 million domestic and nearly $114 million worldwide, plus the first Academy Award ever won by a Godzilla film (for visual effects). Minus Zero's projection is roughly triple that opening. TheWrap also notes the new film carries a 91% score on Rotten Tomatoes as of its report — what that percentage does and doesn't mean is worth its own explainer, and we have one, linked below.
Same weekend, for scale: the incumbent story is The Cat in the Hat, whose forecasts our earlier piece this week put anywhere from $17 million to $50 million depending on whose model you believe. If the cat lands low and the lizard lands high, Sunday's chart will read like a misprint. We also note, from the same tracking report, Sony's Ramayana: Rise of a Legend — projected at $6–10 million over four days from about 1,300 locations, on a reported $420 million combined budget for its two parts. Tracking is a forecast, not a gross: the audited numbers arrive Sunday, and this piece will be updated against them. But the milestone watch is real. Three films in forty years, and a fourth candidate by Friday.
Sources
- TheWrap, box-office tracking report on "Godzilla Minus Zero" (published Nov. 5, 2026) — the $30–35M projection, the Minus One comparison figures ($11.4M opening, $57.1M domestic, ~$114M worldwide, first Godzilla Oscar), the three prior non-English No. 1 openings with their figures, the 91% Rotten Tomatoes score, and the Ramayana projection and reported budget, all as cited there. https://www.thewrap.com/creative-content/movies/godzilla-minus-zero-cat-in-the-hat-box-office-tracking/ — opened in full Nov. 5, 2026.
- Note: all figures in this piece trace to that single trade report, which is the weekend's tracking source of record; the piece labels projections as projections throughout, and the Ramayana budget is stated as "reported," as the source states it.
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