Film execs heading to L.A. for the American Film Market may be feeling something they haven’t in a while: hope.

Disruption still reigns, but independent and specialty fare has had a run of breakouts at the North American box office, topped by this weekend’s launch of Godzilla Minus Zero . The sequel from GKIDS and Toho opened to an estimated $32 million, well above the distributor’s mid-$20 millions projection. Takashi Yamazaki’s follow-up to the Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One (2023) reportedly cost in the mid-teens and is being touted as the biggest live-action foreign-language opening since 2004’s Hero , which bowed with $17.8 million.

It isn’t the only surprise. A24’s You Can See Everything , the Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, is entering blockbuster territory, having grossed almost $80 million domestically.…