Once again, an independent film distributor has thrashed Hollywood's oldest movie studios, at least when it comes to box office results.
Godzilla Minus Zero exceeded expectations for its theatrical debut this weekend, with an estimated $31.6 million in North America ticket sales. The film, distributed by New York-based GKIDS and Japan-based Toho, nearly tripled the $11.4 million opening of its predecessor, the 2023 sci-fi thriller Godzilla Minus One, noted Michael Hickey, entertainment and digital media analyst for StoneX Equity Research.
It also beat out Warner Bros.' animated The Cat in the Hat, which came in a disappointing second-place with an estimated $20.5 million in ticket sales. That was well below the anticipated $30 million to $50 million prerelease tracking, according to Roth Senior Media and Entertainment Analyst Eric Handler.
Lower down on the list of movie debuts was Sony Pictures' Indian epic Ramayana: Rise of a Legend, with $8.7 million of domestic ticket sales. It sold $55.7 million worldwide including $32 million in India, setting a new Diwali holiday opening record.
The weekend performance punctuated the same trend seen in Hollywood earlier this year, when two horror movies directed by viral YouTube stars outperformed big-budget franchise films at the box office.
Hollywood overall has seen a surge in moviegoing as it tracks its best year at the box office since 2019. The domestic box office has raked in $8.62 billion of ticket sales through Sunday, or 20.6% higher than this point in 2025, according to Rentrak. The total is about $1.38 billion short of what's needed to hit $10 billion for the first time since Covid-19.
Godzilla and other new movies nearly doubled the domestic box office haul from the weekend before for an estimated $120.6 million in sales, according to Rentrak.
Godzilla, Japan's first filmed for IMAX movie, sold another $31.4 million of tickets worldwide, for an estimated $63 million global debut, including $21.3 million from global IMAX screens.
Roth's Handler said Godzilla Minus Zero set a record high for a foreign language live-action movie, with domestic ticket sales slightly above the midpoint of its projected opening range of $25 million to $35 million.
The weekend's third-place finisher was Angel Studios' Drummer Boy, a musical set during the American Revolution, with a better-than-expected $9.3 million, which helped push A24's You Can See Everything to fourth place with $8.9 million in ticket sales in its fourth weekend.
Rentrak's head of marketplace trends Paul Dergarabedian chalks up the industry's box office performance this year to variety. "The fact that this rebound is being driven by such a varied assortment of movies speaks to the importance of giving audiences plenty of choices at the multiplex."
The fourth-quarter box office is at a better-than-expected $763 million through Sunday, up 37% over last year. Handler projects quarterly box office of $2.525 billion, up 16% from last year, but notes that there are some difficult comparisons ahead given last year's blockbuster debuts of Wicked for Good and Zootopia 2.
Lionsgate has its debut for The Hunger Games: Sunrise of the Reaping this Thanksgiving. It is reportedly tracking to an $80 million, five-day opening, "with a decent chance to approach $100 million," Handler wrote. Other Thanksgiving releases, Disney's Hexed and Paramount's Focker-in-Law, are both tracking in the $40 million to $50 million range, according to Deadline.
Box Office Theory has raised its opening range for Lionsgate's Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping to between $105 million and $140 million, with a $116 million midpoint, up from $65 million to $85 million two weeks earlier, Hickey wrote. Sunrise on the Reaping, the sixth Hunger Games film, opens on Nov. 20.
Movies opening this week include: Sony Columbia Pictures' Ghost Soldier, an action movie about a weapon systems engineer and former Green Beret protecting his Wyoming neighbors from a ruthless corporation, opening Wednesday.
Opening Friday are Paramount's Ebenezer, a retelling of Dickens' Christmas Story starring Johnny Depp; Amazon MGM's How to Rob a Bank, a comedy about bank robbers posting their heists on social media; and Bleecker Street Media's horror film Victorian Psycho.
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