Godzilla Minus Zero Opens to $31.6 Million, a Foreign-Language Record, as The Cat in the Hat Trails at $20.5 Million

The weekend as a whole was strong. Seat42F counts the top ten at $103.74 million, more than double the $47.18 million of the weekend before.

What happened to The Cat in the Hat?

Warner Bros. Animation's The Cat in the Hat opened second with about $20.5 million from 4,003 theatres, per Seat42F. Rotten Tomatoes added another $10 million overseas and noted that the debut trails earlier Dr. Seuss films and sits well short of the film's reported $86 million budget.

What else is in the top five?

Angel Studios' Drummer Boy opened third with about $9.3 million, which Rotten Tomatoes described as the studio's third-best live-action launch. A24's You Can See Everything held on best of the holdovers, slipping about 23 per cent to $8.8 million even after losing 770 theatres. Its 24-day total reached $79.8 million, and Rotten Tomatoes says it is on pace to pass $100 million.

Fifth was Ramayana: Rise of a Legend, the Sony release that Awards Radar calls the most expensive Indian production of all time. It took about $8.65 million from only 1,433 theatres, an average above $6,000 a theatre, in the first weekend after Diwali. DC Studios' Clayface fell about 39 per cent in its third frame to $6.6 million, for a $56.6 million total.

What to watch on Monday and next weekend

Monday brings the actuals, and with them the first test of whether Godzilla Minus Zero plays like a fan-driven event that fades, or like a launch that keeps building. A 90 per cent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is the early argument for the second. The Cat in the Hat's weekday numbers will say whether Warner Bros. has a slow burn or a stalled launch.

The reports used here are all estimates dated Sunday 8 November, and every figure should be read as provisional until the studios report on Monday.