‘Godzilla Minus One’ Destroys New Global Box Office Milestone

Table of Contents

The Big Picture

Godzilla Minus One continues to exceed expectations and has grossed over $51 million globally.
The film is praised for its positive reviews, with a 97% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes and an excellent A CinemaScore.
Set in post-war Japan, the movie explores anti-war themes and continues the enduring legacy of Godzilla as a metaphorical character.

Thanks to stupendous word-of-mouth and stellar reviews, Toho’s Godzilla Minus One is turning out to be this year’s biggest crossover hit. The kaiju film passed significant box office milestones both domestically and worldwide this weekend, and has already emerged as the biggest-ever Japanese live-action release in North America. Godzilla Minus One exceeded expectations in its opening weekend, and seeing the positive response, Toho increased its theatrical footprint and has expanded its run till at least December 14.

Minus One took the third spot on the domestic chart in its sophomore frame, behind fellow Japanese film The Boy and the Heron, and the holdover hit The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. The film has grossed just over $25 million so far in domestic theaters, and another $26 million from overseas markets — $23 million of which came from Japan — for a cumulative global haul of around $51 million. The 37th overall Godzilla movie and the fifth installment in the franchise’s Reiwa era, Godzilla Minus One will next set its sights on passing the $78 million global haul delivered by its predecessor, Shin Godzilla, in 2016.

While these numbers might seem puny in front of the hundreds of millions that Legendary’s unconnected MonsterVerse franchise has been generating, it must be pointed out that Godzilla Minus One cost less than a tenth of what films this size tend to in Hollywood. And by those standards, it is already a major hit. For context, the movie has already made over $10 million more domestically than last year’s crossover sensation, the Indian period action film RRR.

‘Godzilla Minus One’ Is Among the Best-Reviewed Films of the Year

Most of its success can be attributed to the positive reviews. Godzilla Minus One stands at a “fresh” 97% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, and earned an excellent A CinemaScore from opening day audiences. Collider’s Chase Hutchinson wrote in his review that the film “balances sweeping spectacle and tense action with the more complicated themes of war and loss, making it a solid monster movie that hardly ever makes a wrong step.”

Set in 1940s Japan, Godzilla Minus One takes the venerable franchise back to its anti-war roots. Godzilla debuted in 1954 as a metaphorical take on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, and has since emerged as one of the most enduring characters in pop-culture history. The series experienced a resurgence in recent years, with the MonsterVerse franchise earning billions worldwide and expanding to streaming just a few weeks ago, with the well-received Monarch: Legacy of Monsters show. The MonsterVerse will continue next year, with director Adam Wingard’s Godzilla x Kong: A New Empire. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.