Hitting 3,254 North American theaters from GKids and Toho, Godzilla Minus Zero conquered $14.5 million on Friday, including Thursday previews, as it heads toward an estimated $32 million for the weekend. This is being touted as the highest-grossing live-action foreign-language opening at the box office since 2004’s Hero launched with $17.8 million. (It’s behind the debut of last year’s

King Ghidorah is a big part of the Godzilla lore, and it was fantastic seeing your vision of this character. What was it like for you to bring this character to life in your film?

When Ghidorah made its silver screen debut in “Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster,” it was the first kaiju to appear in Matsumoto City, the same city where I was born and raised. I was very excited to go to the movie theater and see Ghidorah smash up my hometown. But when I got to the theater and saw the film, Ghidorah flies over Matsumoto Castle, and that was it. So I was disappointed.

With “Godzilla Minus One,” I was able to make the movie I wanted to see as a child. King Ghidorah appears in Matsumoto City, which is the same city where I set that scene, and it smashes it up. It’s really a dream come true for me. At the same time, I really love King Ghidorah as a kaiju because the design is amazing.

Casting for the Kaiju x Cold War spy thriller Monsterverse spinoff television series has amped up again with announcements of Tim Robbins (Silo) and Giancarlo Esposito.

Interesting perspective on the creative process for Minus One in addition to teasing a third film.

“It would’ve been very easy to ride that wave, and I was very tempted to at certain moments. But we didn’t set out to capture a worldwide audience [with Minus One], and that was what made it quite unique,” Yamazaki says. “So I wanted to cherish that origin point, and instead of selling out, for lack of a better phrase, by making a film tailored toward the U.S. or American fans of Minus One, I wanted to tell a story that felt important [at home] right now.”

Despite the global streaming success of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and the Wyatt Russell Cold War prequel spinoff now in production in Prague, Czechia and London, UK (working title‘Birdwatcher’), it’s third season renewal remains uncertain.

Apple and Legendary Television are reportedly in discussions about a significant reworking of the show with a new creative team and showrunners and promises of more new titans.

For those of us, especially in the international audience, who really liked how Monarch was more grounded and leaned back into the original grounded and character-driven narratives that we saw in the 2014 film and in Skull Island, this is not great news.

For the younger audience (mainly in the US) who have been so vocally critical of Monarch, this seems to be a reset to change their narrative.

The reports say that any new direction for Monarch will not affect the prequel show with Wyatt Russell.

More news on premieres and media events as Godzilla Minus Zero hits theatrical release this week.

Toho has announced that, to celebrate Godzilla Day November 3rd (and to coincide with the release in Japan), some/select IMAX theatres will run a single 7:00 pm early special showing of Godzilla Minus Zero ahead of the broader international release on November 6, 2026.

It’s unclear if this will happen beyond the US market.

So, this link to a 12 year old posting on YouTube of an even older Japanese language ad for Hitachi just showed up in my feed.

For all who would like a copy for posterity, now we know whet to find it.

Enjoy!

Most of the major review sites have filed at least a ‘first look’ review of Godzilla Minus Zero following the world premiere at the New York Film Festival last weekend.

It’s mostly enthusiastic, with the exception of the odd one that criticizes any focus on ‘boring human characters’ vs Kaiju bashing one another. There’s even early musing that the film is in the hunt for a Best Picture Oscar nomination.

Here’s a round up of the reviews:

Hollywood Reporter

Polygon

IGN

Den of Geek

The Guardian (previously posted)

Roger Ebert

Screen Daily

Joblo

The Wrap

The Daily Beast

Reviews for Godzilla Minus Zero are being posted following its world premiere at the New York Film Festival.

The. Guardian review is posted but feel welcome to add links to others in this thread.

4/5 stars for an a genre film is extraordinary from The Guardian.

the movie’s extended climax features some of the most majestic CG monster action put to film; if the fun American MonsterVerse series tends toward pro-wrestling kaiju, Godzilla Minus Zero cross-breeds its fight-to-the-death grappling with disaster-movie scope and horror-movie teeth.

More on the R rating, and some information about the blew the roof off premiere at the New York Film Festival…

The long-awaited sequel to 2023’s “Godzilla Minus One” earned rave first reactions from the press earlier in the day, and that adoration rolled right into the world premiere. The movie was met with multiple mid-screening applauses as the crowd went wild for all the kaiju mayhem on screen.

“Logically, as a studio — and even as a director — you want as many people from the general public to be able to see your film,” Yamazaki told Variety at the premiere Saturday afternoon. “So, an R-rating might seem like a barrier to entry, and conversations about, ‘Hey, could we have not gotten this down to PG-13?’ of course are going to happen. In spite of that, though, there were certain scenes that, for me as a director, were so essential to the film. Censoring it or cutting it was just not an option for me.”