Godzilla Minus Zero took ¥910 million and drew more than 590,000 people on its opening day, the biggest single-day opening for any live-action film released in Japan, domestic or foreign. The film opened on Nov. 3, the public holiday known as Godzilla Day.
Toho, the studio behind the series, officially established Godzilla Day in 2017 to mark the release of the first Godzilla film on Nov. 3, 1954. The date reaches back 72 years, though the name has been in official use for only nine.
Only three Godzilla films have opened on Nov. 3: the 1954 original, 2023's Godzilla Minus One and now Godzilla Minus Zero. The new film's start follows a decade of moves that tied the character and the date more closely to Tokyo's Hibiya district.
A new Godzilla statue based on the 2016 film Shin Godzilla appeared at Hibiya Godzilla Square, near Toho's headquarters, in 2018. The Tokyo International Film Festival, held around Nov. 3 each year, moved its main venue to the Hibiya area in 2021. Godzilla Minus One closed that festival and opened in Japan on Godzilla Day in 2023, the first time a Godzilla film had done so since the original. It became a global hit and won the Academy Award for visual effects.
Toho had aimed to release Godzilla Minus Zero worldwide on Nov. 3, including in North America, the largest market. It ended up opening in other countries on a rolling basis within a week of the Japanese release.
The box office chart
In the weekend rankings for the last week of October and the first week of November, Mama ga Mo Kono Sekai ni Inakute mo Watashi no Inochi no Nikki — released in English as a film about a mother's illness — held first place for a third straight weekend. It sold 205,000 tickets and took ¥267 million over the three-day weekend, its fourth time at the top in five weeks since release.
In its first 31 days the film drew 2.4177 million people and earned ¥3.441 billion, putting ¥4 billion within reach.