Godzilla Is Coming for a Box Office Record Nobody Thought a Subtitled Movie Could Touch

Three years ago, a low-budget Japanese monster movie called Godzilla Minus One came out of nowhere, won an Oscar, and made fans out of people who'd never cared about Godzilla. Now the sequel is here, and it's off to a much bigger start. Godzilla Minus Zero pulled in $6.7 million from early previews, Yahoo report, and it's on track for an opening weekend of around $30 million in North America. Deadline's latest estimate puts it at $30 million to $33 million.

That number matters because of what it would beat. According to Forbes, citing Deadline, the biggest opening ever for a foreign-language live-action film in North America belongs to the 2002 Chinese martial arts film Hero, at $17.8 million. Minus Zero looks set to blow past that, and it's doing it in Japanese with English subtitles, on 3,254 screens. For context, Minus One opened to $11.4 million and finished with $57 million at home and $113 million worldwide.

Takashi Yamazaki is back as writer and director, Toho produced it, and GKids is handling the North American release. Critics seem happy so far, with the film sitting at 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. Yamazaki has said the first movie cost less than $15 million, which is part of why its Best Visual Effects Oscar was such a shock. He's said the sequel would cost more, though the budget hasn't been made public.

It's a busy weekend overall. Warner Bros.' animated The Cat in the Hat is expected to take second with roughly $17 million to $20 million on a reported $86 million budget. Angel Studios' Drummer Boy, the Elizabeth Holmes documentary You Can See Everything and the big-budget Indian epic Ramayana: Rise of a Legend round out the top five, at least on projections. Final numbers come Monday.