GKIDS President David Jesteadt Is Expanding Hollywood’s Definition of Box Office Hits

GKIDS President David Jesteadt is bringing Godzilla Minus Zero to North America with an IMAX head start. Early-access screenings begin today, Nov. 3, ahead of the wider Nov. 6 release. The launch extends the Toho-owned distributor’s move beyond its established animation business into Japanese live-action cinema.

GKIDS handles Studio Ghibli’s film library in North America and is now launching a new Godzilla film for Toho, which bought the company in 2024. Jesteadt stayed on as president alongside founder and CEO Eric Beckman. Last year, he negotiated the North American rights deal for the kabuki drama Kokuho, while GKIDS also brought a 4K restoration of Shin Godzilla back to theaters.

In Godzilla’s world, the nuclear fire-breathing giant lizard can ascend to his throne as King of the Monsters with a near-immediate mutation caused by atomic radiation. But audience preferences and behavior rarely move with the same swiftness. The new film’s predecessor, 2023’s awesome Godzilla Minus One, earned $57.1 million domestically, giving Jesteadt a substantial result to build upon.

Minus Zero, the first Japanese production in the “Filmed for IMAX” program, is also a test case for a more interesting potential development. The emergence of select anime blockbusters, international titles, digital creator productions and other atypical big-screen events suggests that American audiences may be slowly broadening their theatrical preferences. If this is more trend than blip, Jesteadt and others could help the oft-challenged industry deliver new entertainment to multiplexes.

Japanese cinema and international films

Outside of a few substantial breakouts, many of these releases provide incremental box-office additions. Yet even this gradual drip of respectable revenue can be a helpful indicator. Dragon Ball Super: Broly earned $31 million domestically, South Korea’s Parasite $54 million and Demon Slayer: Mugen Train $50 million.

More recently, Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle reached $137 million domestically, while Chainsaw Man—The Movie: Reze Arc collected $43 million. Hollywood distributors are part of this business, too: Sony Pictures released both films in North America.

Final pre-release audience awareness was 35 percent for Infinity Castle, 23 percent for Chainsaw Man and 25 percent for Minus One, according to Greenlight Analytics. Their results suggest what a narrow but highly engaged existing audience can support.

Broly, Infinity Castle and Reze Arc came out of established anime franchises with audiences already accustomed to following their stories on television. Godzilla has obviously been stomping around for more than 70 years. Parasite was an original that became the first non-English-language film to win Best Picture at the Oscars.

In Observer’s 2017 interview, Jesteadt describes GKIDS’ niche as standalone anime and explains why established television franchises already had distributors serving their fans. Toho’s ownership gives his company a different assignment: releasing its parent’s new Godzilla film in North America.

Getting exhibitors behind that expansion is part of the job. In a March 9 announcement from theater trade group Cinema United, Jesteadt explained why GKIDS chose CinemaCon to introduce Minus Zero: the audience would be “the folks who present that movie magic on the big screen: the cinema owners.” GKIDS and director Takashi Yamazaki subsequently unveiled the first teaser at the convention in April.

Wider distribution and premium formats are supplementing limited, one-off specialty releases. Toho’s purchase of GKIDS fits its stated strategy of expanding overseas, adding theatrical and home-entertainment distribution capabilities to its existing North American business. If Jesteadt delivers another win with Minus Zero, it will be another data point in favor of this gentle shift.

Concert films and filmed stage shows

Taylor Swift is the ultimate outlier. Her concert film The Eras Tour earned $181 million domestically, leaps and bounds ahead of Justin Bieber: Never Say Never at $73 million and Michael Jackson’s This Is It at $72 million.

Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert earned $65 million, while Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé collected $34 million. Not even Billie Eilish could top $10 million domestically with Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D). Even big stars struggle to consistently draw fans into new mediums.

But the select few above have delivered not insignificant totals, showing that a theatrical event can take on many forms. To a much smaller degree, this extends to filmed stage productions. Hadestown: The Musical earned $21 million domestically and Hamilton $17 million.

Hadestown was filmed in London’s West End with its original Broadway principals, while Hamilton’s theatrical run came in 2025. Neither played in more than 1,950 theaters. For context, major Hollywood blockbusters commonly open in 3,000 to 4,000-plus theaters.

Swift, in all her precedent-shattering glory, bypassed traditional studio distribution by releasing the film directly with AMC Theatres. It worked, though it cannot be easily replicated. Filmed stage performances turn out a highly specialized audience, but the examples above have not tested a comparable blockbuster-scale release.

Greenlight’s tracking showed limited awareness growth across the final eight pre-release weeks for Eilish’s film and Hadestown. That suggests their reach remained concentrated, though the tracking alone cannot establish how much their marketing campaigns contributed.

This model appears to work best with a substantial foundation of existing fans. But the size of that fandom and its willingness to pay for a nonstandard theatrical experience are entirely different questions. Profitable releases are far from guaranteed, though experimentation might be worth it for the very biggest talents and stage shows.

YouTube filmmakers and theatrical horror

Mark Fischbach’s Iron Lung earned $41 million domestically, Kane Parsons’ Backrooms $198 million and Curry Barker’s Obsession $263 million. All resemble Hollywood horror films. In that way, they stand far apart from our previous examples. Yet all were directed by filmmakers who developed audiences through digital media.

Iron Lung was even self-financed and self-distributed in North America by its star, writer and director, Fischbach—better known as Markiplier to his tens of millions of YouTube subscribers—with Centurion Films handling theater bookings. Backrooms was released by A24 and Obsession by NBCUniversal’s Focus Features.

Their production budgets were small by Hollywood standards. The Numbers lists $10 million for Backrooms. In a Feb. 13 interview with Deadline’s Jill Goldsmith, Fischbach put Iron Lung’s budget at “a little over $4 million.”

Barker put Obsession’s production cost at no more than $750,000 in the New Yorker’s May 11 profile. That same report says Focus paid $15 million to acquire the movie. Production and acquisition costs are different figures, while box-office receipts must also cover exhibitors’ share and expenses such as marketing.

Whereas once music videos served as a minor league for emerging feature directors such as David Fincher and Spike Jonze, social media has become a developmental ground for the next generation of storytellers. Converting online audiences into theatrical ticket buyers remains difficult, as the roughly $613,000 domestic total for Ryan’s World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure makes clear.

But these horror films’ relatively low production costs and communal big-screen appeal provide natural crossover points. Greenlight’s ratio of theatrical intent to awareness was 1.18 for Iron Lung, 1.02 for Backrooms and 1.14 for Obsession. The measure compares stated demand with how widely a film is known; it does not count ticket purchases.

What’s particularly interesting is how these audiences turned out. Obsession increased its weekend total in its second and third weekends, which is as abnormal as its wish-granting One Wish Willow itself. Backrooms earned 41 percent of its domestic total in its opening weekend, an $81 million debut. The former grew after opening and the latter was a frontloaded, opening-driven hit. Similar genres, different behaviors and trajectories.

YouTube, TikTok and Instagram are increasingly serving as talent-discovery platforms where new intellectual property can develop and followings can be built. Whether that can consistently feed theatrical cinema is the billion-dollar question over the longer term.

Frequent moviegoers show stronger intent

Here’s the issue: these releases aren’t necessarily courting new audiences as hoped. Greenlight’s tracking showed stronger theatrical intent among frequent moviegoers than among casual ones. It measures stated plans, which cannot establish whether a film generated an additional visit.

In the final pre-release tracking for Obsession, Backrooms, Infinity Castle, Chainsaw Man, Hadestown, Eilish’s film, Renaissance, The Eras Tour and Minus One, no title topped 13 percent theatrical intent among casual moviegoers. Among frequent moviegoers, the figures ranged from 24 percent to 42 percent.

The creator-led horror films performed best with casual moviegoers: Backrooms at 13 percent and Obsession at 11 percent. The anime films followed, with Chainsaw Man and Infinity Castle both at 9 percent.

Greenlight’s demographic breakdowns also fell into familiar bands. The anime films skewed toward younger men, Minus One toward men 35 and older, Swift and Beyoncé’s films toward women and the horror titles toward younger audiences.

Atypical theatrical titles don’t need four-quadrant mainstream appeal to create successful businesses. But if this lane is going to grow beyond the occasional pleasant surprise, it will need to keep energizing its main audience or expand beyond that core once in a while.

Jesteadt’s next test for GKIDS

Jesteadt now has a new Godzilla film, an IMAX launch and Toho’s backing. His acquisitions and releases are extending GKIDS’ business beyond animation, while the parent company gains a direct North American distribution operation for one of cinema’s most enduring franchise icons. The question is whether that combination can support a broader, repeatable business.

Swift and AMC successfully sidestepped conventional Hollywood studio distribution. A trickle of digital creators are successfully transitioning to feature directors. Traditional distributors and exhibitors are broadening the range of theatrical offerings, which can help fill schedule gaps.

Raw box-office totals are not the same thing as profit. Reliable consistency remains a total question mark. But diversification is a good thing if there’s a market for it.

Cinema United president and CEO Michael O’Leary made the case for a diverse, year-round slate in the trade group’s March 9 announcement of GKIDS’ first CinemaCon presentation. “GKIDS exemplifies a commitment to diverse moviegoing choices,” he said.

American audiences are hardly falling out of love with Hollywood movies. But recent years have delivered a handful of unconventional examples with substantial ticket sales. This has created new opportunities for international studios, specific subgenres of entertainment and digital-native creators. It may not be the same immediate metamorphosis Godzilla underwent, nor remotely as explosive. But it could be the slow start to a healthier and more varied theatrical marketplace.

Brandon Katz is director of insights and content strategy at Greenlight Analytics, whose audience research is cited in this article.

Box-office figures are reported cumulative U.S. and Canadian ticket sales, including rereleases where counted by the cited databases, and are not adjusted for inflation.