This past weekend, Godzilla Minus One eclipsed the $55 million mark at the North American box office, bringing its worldwide total to $102.6 million. The film is set to exit North American theaters on February 01, but it should easily pass the $103 million mark.
The film also became the third highest-grossing foreign-language film in North America, surpassing Jet Li's Hero (2002, $53.7m) and Parasite (2019, $53.4m).
The 1998 Italian-comedy Life Is Beautiful is within striking distance ($57.2m) but the top-grossing foreign-language film, 2000's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ($128m) is well out of reach.
Still, Minus One is likely to secure and hold on to the second place for quite some time.
Recently, director Takashi Yamazaki and the film's cast and crew celebrated the film's Oscar nomination. It is the first for the Godzilla franchise in the IP's history.
It secured a Best Visual Effects nomination, where it will compete against The Creator, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One, and Napoleon.
Yamazaki (Lupin III: The First, Dragon Quest: Your Story) directed and wrote Godzilla Minus One. In the film Ryunosuke Kamiki portrays Koichi Shikishima, Minami Hamabe portrays Noriko Oishi, Yuki Yamada portrays Shiro Mizushima, Munetaka Aoki portrays Sosaku Tachibana, and Hidetaka Yoshioka portrays Kenji Noda.
In a press release, Yamazaki commented on the film becoming the highest-grossing live-action Japanese film in North America. "I am happy that Godzilla, of all characters, has eclipsed a record that had not been broken for a long time. Looking back, I think that the cast and crew were all working on the film with the same goal in mind: to make something entertaining! That is what led to such a wonderful result. I will always remember this."
The official synopsis for the film reads, "In the final days of World War II, a small group of Japanese soldiers encounter a dinosaur-like creature on a remote island and are massacred—leaving only two survivors. Two years later, the creature, now many times its original size and capable of shooting thermonuclear breath, appears and begins attacking ships off the coast of Japan—moving ever closer to the still-devastated, post-war Japanese mainland."
Godzilla Minus One started its limited theatrical run in North America on December 1, following special fan showings on November 29.