Godzilla Minus Zero Breaks a 24-Year-Old Box Office Record Held by Harry Potter in Japan

Godzilla Minus Zero has broken a box office record that had stood for nearly 24 years. Toho’s sequel earned ¥910 million, about US$5.7 million, on its November 3 opening day in Japan, the biggest first day any live-action film has recorded there, and it took the mark from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which had held it since that film opened in November 2002. Takashi Yamazaki’s R-rated follow-up to Godzilla Minus One then crossed the Pacific, and Deadline’s Saturday-morning estimate has it opening to about $32 million in North America, which would be the largest debut ever for a live-action foreign-language film.

The two records come from different markets but share a vintage. Zhang Yimou’s Hero, a 2002 martial-arts epic that reached American theaters in 2004, had held the North American mark for a live-action foreign-language opening at $17.8 million, and Godzilla Minus Zero is on course to come close to doubling it. Sunday numbers are still being finalized, so the weekend figures below are estimates, and studio actuals are due on Monday.

• Godzilla Minus Zero earned ¥910 million from about 590,000 admissions on November 3, topping the ¥840 million that Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets made on its first day in 2002
• The sequel opened in 448 Japanese theaters, roughly half the 858 screens the Potter film used
• Deadline’s Saturday-morning estimate has it at about $32 million from 3,254 North American theaters, against $17.8 million for Hero
• Thursday previews of $6.7 million and an A CinemaScore helped make it the biggest opening in the history of distributor GKIDS
• The record is for live-action films only, and weekend figures are estimates until actuals arrive on Monday

The record Godzilla Minus Zero took from Harry Potter

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets opened in Japan on Saturday, November 23, 2002, across 858 screens, then a record for a launch in the country. Screen Daily reported at the time that it had become the biggest opener in Japanese history, overtaking Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones. Deadline puts that film’s opening-day gross at ¥840 million, which is the figure Godzilla Minus Zero passed with ¥910 million, a margin of roughly 8 percent. The ranking comes from the trade tracker Kogyo Tsushinsha, and it covers both Japanese and imported live-action releases.

The comparison is more striking once screens are counted. According to Mantan Web, Toho opened the sequel in 448 theaters, made up of 383 standard locations and 65 IMAX auditoriums, which is about half the footprint of the Potter sequel. Toho also says the opening day reached 201 percent of Godzilla Minus One’s, which implies a first day of roughly ¥450 million for the 2023 film, and the sequel sold about 590,000 tickets on that single day.

Context matters for a one-day number. November 3 is a national holiday in Japan and the anniversary of the original film’s 1954 release, which fans celebrate as Godzilla Day, so schools and offices were closed. The Potter sequel also launched on a weekend day. Both records are for a single day rather than a full run, and the all-time opening-day mark for any film in Japan still belongs to animation, with Deadline noting that Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle opened to ¥1.64 billion in July 2025. The Potter film also went on to a far larger total: Wikipedia’s list of the highest-grossing films in Japan puts Chamber of Secrets at about ¥17.3 billion, well above the ¥10 billion that Japanese forecasts are projecting for the Godzilla sequel.

Every Movie Plug reported the first-day figures in Godzilla Minus Zero Breaks Japan’s Opening-Day Record Ahead of Its North American Debut, and the history behind the date is told in Today in Cinema, November 3: Godzilla Rises From Tokyo Bay in 1954 and Changes Monster Movies Forever. The franchise that lost the record is rebooting itself right now. HBO’s Harry Potter series premieres on December 25, 2026, and Every Movie Plug has followed its casting in HBO Casts Jasper Talbot and Hannah Chinn as James and Lily Potter, Plus Harry Gilby as Charlie Weasley and the wider restart in Harry Potter Is Starting Over, and the Franchise Is Betting Big.

A $32 million opening in North America

GKIDS, the Toho-owned distributor, released the film in 3,254 North American theaters on Friday, November 6. Thursday previews took $6.7 million, a GKIDS record and a high for a non-English live-action release, according to MovieWeb and ComicBasics. MovieWeb also notes that the figure edged past the $6.3 million that Legendary’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters made on its opening Thursday in 2019. Friday finished at $14.5 million including those previews, according to Deadline’s Saturday-morning update, which raised an earlier Friday-night estimate of $13.5 million, and the three-day weekend is now estimated at about $32 million.

The scale of the jump is the story. GKIDS’ previous best opening was $13 million for Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron in 2023, and Godzilla Minus One debuted to $11.4 million that December before finishing at roughly $57 million domestically and winning the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. The sequel has nearly tripled that opening. The Hollywood Reporter says the weekend is running far ahead of the distributor’s own projection in the mid-$20 millions, audiences gave the film an A CinemaScore, and Rotten Tomatoes shows it Certified Fresh at about 90 percent, a little below the 99 percent the first film holds.

Against Hero, the headline is simple, and Screen Rant adds a useful footnote. It calculates that Hero’s $17.8 million is worth roughly $31.6 million after adjusting for inflation, so the Godzilla estimate would clear that bar too, but only narrowly, and the number is likely to move when actuals arrive. One more caveat on wording: the record is for live-action films. The biggest foreign-language opening of any kind in North America remains the anime Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle, which took $70.6 million in September 2025, according to ComicBasics and Boxoffice Pro.

Why the numbers surprised the industry

Premium screens are a large part of the answer. Godzilla Minus Zero is the first Japanese film to be shot for IMAX, and Forbes and Variety both point to IMAX and other premium formats as a major driver of the opening. That also means the film’s run will be shaped by what arrives next. Dune: Part Three and Avengers: Doomsday open on the same Friday, December 18, and they will compete for the same large-format auditoriums, a situation Every Movie Plug explains in the Dunesday Survival Guide: How to Watch Dune: Part Three and Avengers: Doomsday, and Which to See First.

The release strategy mattered as well. Anime News Network notes that this is the first time a Japan-produced Godzilla film has opened in Japan and North America in the same week, and Toho rolled the film out across Latin America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand at the same time. Deadline’s preview expected more than $30 million from 23 overseas territories this weekend. A near-simultaneous global launch has echoes of the record-setting rollout covered in Today in Cinema, November 5: The Matrix Revolutions Ends the Trilogy in 108 Territories at Once, although the Godzilla rollout is far smaller in scale. Cosmic Book News, summarizing Deadline’s reporting, adds that GKIDS kept its marketing spend under $10 million and did not buy any television advertising.

What audiences are buying a ticket for

Yamazaki wrote and directed the film and supervised its visual effects. It is set in 1949, two years after the events of Godzilla Minus One, with Ryunosuke Kamiki and Minami Hamabe returning as Koichi Shikishima and Noriko Oishi. Postwar Japan is still rebuilding when King Ghidorah arrives, and the three-headed monster makes its first appearance in a mainline Godzilla film since 2001’s Giant Monsters All-Out Attack. The film is also the first Godzilla movie to receive an R rating, for violent content and bloody images, and it premiered at the New York Film Festival on September 26 before opening in Japan and North America in the same week.

The Ghidorah choice is personal. Yamazaki, who grew up in Matsumoto, has said he waited as a child for the 1964 film Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster hoping to see the creature wreck his hometown, and the sequel puts that wish on screen. The production also drew a famous admirer: James Cameron reportedly told Yamazaki he would gladly help direct a second unit if the schedule slipped. Cameron is one of the filmmakers examined in Five Directors, Five Visions: The Signature Styles of Hollywood’s Defining Filmmakers.

Reaction has not been unanimous. The film’s critics’ score is below that of its predecessor, and Toyo Keizai Online reported that opinion in Japan has split sharply over the film’s final stretch even as the box office climbs. A strong opening and a divided conversation are not unusual for a sequel that expands the scale of a beloved original, and the A CinemaScore suggests that general audiences have been far warmer than critics.

Can it reach ¥10 billion in Japan?

Toho says the first-day result puts the film within reach of becoming the first Godzilla title to pass ¥10 billion at the Japanese box office. The current franchise benchmark is Shin Godzilla, which collected ¥8.25 billion in 2016, and Godzilla Minus One finished at ¥7.65 billion. The sequel reached ¥1.38 billion, about $8.7 million, through its first three days, and Deadline’s Saturday-morning report had its Japan total at ¥2.08 billion, about $11.8 million. Japanese forecasts cited by Deadline see a final result above ¥10 billion, roughly $63 million, though a holiday opening can flatter early numbers and the weekend of November 7 and 8 will say more about how long the run can last.

Records fall, and franchises keep growing

Records are temporary, and the history of the Potter mark is the exception rather than the rule. Every Movie Plug’s look at The Flintstones (1994): How It Was Made, Effects and Box Office notes that the Memorial Day record that film set in 1994 lasted only two years before Mission: Impossible took it. The Japanese opening-day record held for nearly a quarter of a century, and the way successful brands scale into the biggest box office results is the subject of The Billion-Dollar Club: The 10 Highest-Grossing Movies of All Time.

The Godzilla calendar is filling up. Legendary’s Monsterverse returns in 2027 with Godzilla x Kong: Supernova, and Yamazaki is already preparing Grandgear, a giant-robot film due in January 2028. Studios are extending other franchises too, including Lionsgate, which has greenlit an animated John Wick prequel with Keanu Reeves returning to voice the assassin.

What happens next

Studio actuals arrive on Monday, and the main question is how Sunday audiences behave for a film that leans so heavily on premium screens and fan turnout. The worldwide opening is the other number to watch. Deadline’s preview put the global start near $60 million, and Forbes columnist Mark Hughes expects it to land between $65 million and $70 million. Forbes and Screen Rant have also floated a final global total of around $275 million, which is a projection from commentators rather than anything the studio has said.

The second weekend will show whether the opening is driven by fans who rushed to see the film or by broader word of mouth, and the first film is a useful reference point, because it kept expanding for weeks after a modest start. Readers can follow every box office and franchise story in the Film News section and find longer features on the films and directors behind them in the articles section.

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