Godzilla Minus Zero Smashes a Box Office Record

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Coming up on Spotlight: Godzilla is breaking a box office record that stood for more than twenty years, a hockey romance is reportedly skating into two more seasons and a movie, and Philomena Cunk has started reviewing films online. The results are about what you'd expect.

Godzilla first. Godzilla Minus Zero, Takashi Yamazaki's follow-up to his Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One, is on track for about thirty-two million dollars in North America this weekend, according to Saturday estimates from Deadline. That's the biggest opening ever here for a live-action film not in English, nearly doubling the old mark set by Zhang Yimou's Hero. It's also the biggest launch yet for GKIDS, the distributor best known for bringing Studio Ghibli films to American theaters.

The film reportedly cost somewhere in the mid-teens of millions, and Deadline says about three-quarters of the money came from IMAX and other premium big screens, a share it calls never seen before. People want this roar as loud as possible. The setup: it's 1949, Japan is finally clawing back to normal life, and something new arrives to wreck it. The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney calls it a "thrilling jolt of marauding monster action."

In second, Warner Bros.' animated The Cat in the Hat, with Bill Hader voicing the cat, is heading for roughly eighteen to twenty million. Critics were lukewarm, but audiences gave it an A CinemaScore, and Deadline spotted a strange pattern: on Friday, nine of its ten best theaters were in New Jersey, where schools were closed for a teachers' convention.

Further down, Ramayana: Rise of a Legend opened as the widest North American release ever for an Indian film, the first half of a two-part epic that Deadline says cost up to half a billion dollars. That makes Godzilla's budget look like the catering bill. And Martin McDonagh's Wild Horse Nine, with John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell as CIA agents on Easter Island in 1973, is headed for around five million.

One more oddity on the chart: Heated Rivalry, the Canadian hockey romance that streams on HBO Max in the US, is playing in about 880 theaters as paired episodes of its first season, on track for around 1.3 million dollars. The bigger news came Saturday, when Deadline reported, citing sources, that the series is filming not one but two more six-episode seasons, plus a movie. Crave, the Canadian streamer behind it, says there's nothing to confirm. Season two is officially due in spring 2027. If you missed the phenomenon, it adapts Rachel Reid's novels about rival hockey stars Shane and Ilya, played by Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie. The secret wasn't kept very well. Back in August, guest star Dylan Walsh said in a Cameo video, "I think we're doing twelve this time," then added to his profile that a video had gotten him in trouble.

Sad news from music. Richard Lloyd, guitarist and co-founder of Television, died Saturday morning at his home in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He was 75 and had been diagnosed with bile duct cancer in March. Television came up at CBGB in the mid-seventies, and their 1977 debut, Marquee Moon, is still a model for how two guitars can talk to each other. Lloyd and Tom Verlaine wove their parts together instead of one taking the lead while the other held down chords. Johnny Marr called Lloyd "a seeker and finder and a true inspiration." Lloyd Cole put it more simply: "All those amazing riffs that drive the songs, Richard played them all." His family said his wife Sheila and his dog, Willie Mays, were with him at the end. If you've never heard it, Marquee Moon's ten-minute title track is the place to start.

In games, Mass Effect fans spent N7 Day protesting EA's closure of BioWare. One team spent it shipping something. The modders at ME3Tweaks released a free port of Mass Effect 3's co-op multiplayer into the Legendary Edition on PC, the mode that was left out of the 2021 remaster. Their lead, who goes by Mgamerz, told IGN it took three years, including six to eight months lost when he broke his arm. He also predicted day one would be "kind of a train wreck," which is the most honest launch promise in gaming. It's on Nexus Mods, and you need to own the Legendary Edition.

Next Saturday, Eurovision goes to Asia for the first time. Eleven countries, from Bhutan and Mongolia to South Korea and the Philippines, will compete in a single final in Bangkok on November 14, streaming on Eurovision's YouTube channel. The rules are familiar, with one difference: the winner doesn't automatically host next year, because organizers say smaller countries may lack the infrastructure. China and Japan missed the deadline, but the executive producer says he's "very, very optimistic" about next year.

Finally, Philomena Cunk has a Letterboxd account. Diane Morgan's gloriously clueless presenter has a new series, Cunk on Cinema, arriving on Netflix November 15, and the account is posting about one review a day until then. Rain Man: "Disappointing superhero film. Tom Cruise stars as Rain-Man." And Grease, she notes, stars "Olivia Newt and John." Her bio admits the producers made her set it up for PR reasons, and adds, "They're literally watching me type this now."

That's Spotlight for Sunday. If you've got an evening free, find the biggest screen in town for Godzilla, or put on Marquee Moon and listen for Richard Lloyd. See you tomorrow.