Toho Studios has announced the ‘Godzilla Minus One’ follow-up.
The next movie will be called ‘Godzilla Minus Zero’
Takashi Yamazaki is back to direct.
Back in 2023, ‘Godzilla Minus One’ stomped across screens and the box office, impressing critics and audiences with its layered human characters and stylish visuals.
It’s not shocking, then, that backers Toho Studios would choose this year’s recent Godzilla Day 2025 in Tokyo to announce the first details of the follow-up.
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‘Godzilla Minus Zero’, alternately styled as the official logo suggests, as ‘Godzilla -0.0’, will see the giant creature return to theaters for his 31st Japanese movie (which doesn’t include any of the US-based Monsterverse outings).
Can we expect the big-screen debut of cartoon annoyance Godzooky this time? Don’t hold your radioactive breath.
‘Godzilla Minus One’ takes place just after World War II, when Japan has no self-defense force and no armaments. The movie asks the question: What happens if Godzilla comes to Japan while it is completely disarmed?
Meanwhile, after losing his honor in the war, Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) creates a surrogate family with Noriko Oishi (Minami Hamabe) just when Godzilla attacks again.
The movie set several new benchmarks. Made on a reported budget of just $15 million, it defied expectations by earning more than $113 million worldwide and became the first film in the Godzilla franchise’s 70-year history to win an Academy Award, taking home the Oscar for best visual effects (in a category crowded with Hollywood tentpoles with vastly bigger budgets).
It also became the all-time top-grossing live-action Japanese film at the North American box office.
As for the new movie, we don’t have an inkling as to the story yet, but be prepared for more giant lizard carnage. According to what The Hollywood Reporter has heard, the new film is being positioned not just as a sequel but as a statement piece. Which means? We’re not entirely sure yet.
All we do know right now is that ‘Minus One’ director Takashi Yamazaki is back to handle the new film.
What else is happening in the world of Godzilla?
Still from ‘Godzilla Minus One’.
The next entry in Legendary and Warner Bros’ Monsterverse saga, ‘Godzilla x Kong: Supernova’ is in the works right now with Grant Sputore in the director’s chair. That’s scheduled for release in 2027.
And Apple TV series ‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’, which has occasional appearances from the Big G, has shot its second season, with a premiere date to be confirmed.
When will ‘Godzilla Minus Zero’ be in theaters?
Toho has yet to confirm when the next Japanese movie will roar into cinemas.
‘Godzilla Minus One’ opens in U.S. theaters on December 1st 2023.
Preview:
Toho Studios has announced a new ‘Godzilla’ movie.
It follows in the huge footsteps of ‘Godzilla Minus One.’
Writer/director Takashi Yamazaki will return to craft the latest film.
Monsterverse? Schmonsterverse.
While Warner Bros. and Legendary might be cooking up new ways for the gigantic likes of Godzilla and Kong to battle other beasties (or each other), the studios have seen diminishing returns on their linked series of movies.
Toho Studios, meanwhile, birthplace of at least the big G (plus a host of other Kaiju) are looking to capitalize on the mammoth success of 2023’s ‘Godzilla Minus One.’
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That movie, which was written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, was lauded for its special effects (including with the Visual Effects Oscar) in portraying the monster and its rampant destruction on a low budget of around $15 million.
It went on to make $116 million worldwide and became the highest-grossing Japanese Godzilla film, plus the second-highest grossing foreign language movie in the U.S.
Now, via an announcement on Twitter, Toho has revealed that Yamazaki will be back to oversee the next movie.
‘Godzilla Minus One’ opens in U.S. theaters on December 1st.
The human focus of the story was Ryunosuke Kamiki’s Kōichi Shikishima, a former kamikaze pilot who survives an almost fatal encounter with Godzilla and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. When the massive beast reappears years later, a group of soldiers and veterans must band together to defeat the monster before it can destroy Japan.
‘Godzilla Minus One’ opens in U.S. theaters on December 1st.
It’s unclear if the new movie is a direct sequel to ‘Godzilla Minus One;’ however, the film did end on a cliffhanger for the rampaging lizard.
After Godzilla is defeated, it’s revealed that a piece of the monster’s flesh is regenerating in the bottom of the ocean.
There’s also the issue of Shikishima’s girlfriend, Noriko Ōishi (Minami Hamabe), who survived a run-in with Godzilla but is left with a mysterious black marking on her neck.
Whatever the story, we can surely expect more big lizard action. And it makes sense that the announcement was made just before Godzilla Day 2024 (November 3rd in case you want to mark it in your diary for the future), which this year celebrates 70 years of the titular beast. And he doesn’t look a day over 65!
When will the new ‘Godzilla’ movie stomp into theaters?
There is no information yet on when the new movie might arrive in US theaters. Toho Studios didn’t mention when the movie might start shooting, so we’re not going to even guess at a release date just yet.
‘Godzilla Minus One’ opens in U.S. theaters on December 1st.
‘Godzilla Minus One’ opens in U.S. theaters on December 1st.
The latest entry in the world’s longest-running film franchise, ‘Godzilla Minus One’ takes the legendary monster back to earth-shaking basics for perhaps the finest movie in the series since the 1954 original. The movie not only looks and sounds spectacular, but Godzilla has rarely been this frightening. Plus the human story, in which its characters are still coming to terms with the effects of World War II, is emotional, involving and as gripping as the admittedly riveting monster mayhem.
Story and Direction
(L to R) Director Takashi Yamazaki and Ryunosuke Kamiki discuss ‘Godzilla Minus One.’
As ‘Godzilla Minus One’ opens, it’s the waning days of World War II and kamikaze pilot Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) lands at an airbase on Odo Island, claiming he’s having problems with his plane. In reality – and to the scorn of chief mechanic Sōsaku Tachibana (Munetaka Aoki) – Kōichi has found himself unable to complete his mission of self-sacrifice.
Already humiliated by his apparent cowardice, Kōichi is shamed and horrified even further when a giant, dinosaur-like creature appears on the island, and Kōichi freezes up instead of firing the 20mm gun on his plane. The monster ends up killing the entire team of mechanics but leaving only Kōichi and Tachibana alive, with Kōichi even more guilt-ridden over his inaction.
Kōichi returns home after the war is over to find his parents dead and his village destroyed. But out of the rubble comes Noriko (Minami Hamabe), a young woman who has also lost her family but is taking care of an orphaned infant named Akiko. The three form a family of sorts, although Kōichi can’t help but feel like he should be dead as well, and denies himself any attempt at love or happiness.
Kōichi finds work aboard a minesweeper boat amidst evidence that the same creature that attacked Odo Island has been mutated into an even more powerful beast by U.S. atomic tests. After the monster destroys both U.S. and Japanese warships and heads for Tokyo, it’s left to the Japanese people to defend their country and very existence against the wrath of Godzilla – even with no military force and barely any weapons.
‘Godzilla Minus One’ opens in U.S. theaters on December 1st.
Just as the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki pervaded the original 1954 ‘Gojira,’ the specter of war and its existential threat to any country hangs over ‘Godzilla Minus One.’ Directed and written by Takashi Yamazaki – one of Japan’s most acclaimed genre filmmakers – the film is emotionally and thematically grounded in its lead characters, easily among the most well-developed in any sci-fi movie, let alone a Godzilla film. Kōichi, despondent over his inability to sacrifice his life and despairing over his future, personifies Japan itself in the aftermath of the war, with Godzilla acting as a metaphor for whether Japan will even continue to exist after its defeat.
It’s the character drama in the foreground that gives ‘Godzilla Minus One’ its emotional heft, providing a narrative in which the magnitude of the stakes and the characters’ personal investment in them are palpable. Yamazaki guides his excellent cast (Kamiki, Hamabe, and Aoki are all outstanding, as is Hidetaka Yoshioka as the nerdy scientist who formulates the eventual operation to destroy Godzilla), while wisely doling out the title monster’s appearances for maximum impact.
And make no mistake, with Godzilla’s four or so major set pieces in the film, Yamazaki makes the beast more genuinely frightening than he’s been in years. The battles at sea are epic and exciting, while the central attack on Tokyo’s Ginza district is truly horrific. Yamazaki does not spare us the human cost or the scale of the apocalyptic destruction; Godzilla’s heat breath creates an effect very much like a nuclear explosion. This is not a Godzilla movie for little kids.
Godzilla has been through many incarnations throughout his/its long career onscreen, but diehard fans generally agree that the original movie – which was nothing less than a poignant expression of grief over the atomic devastation that rained on Japan just nine years earlier – is still the best. Expertly balancing the human drama with the monster mayhem, while giving both meaning and power, Takashi Yamazaki has delivered possibly the best Godzilla movie since the first one, and certainly the one that comes closest to the original in tone and spirit.
The Big Green Guy
‘Godzilla Minus One’ opens in U.S. theaters on December 1st.
Godzilla has gone through many different visualizations during his nearly seven decades onscreen, from the original, stocky man-in-suit of the early films to the ill-advised walking iguana of Roland Emmerich’s 1998 misfire. In ‘Godzilla Minus One,’ he hews closer to the classic look: with short(ish) arms, thick legs, and a stocky body – at least in his final version. He’s a little more reptilian and perhaps agile when we first meet him, although he mutates throughout the course of the film into the much larger, more powerful, stand-up-straight iteration that dominates most of the movie.
This is one angry Godzilla, perhaps the angriest and meanest of them all. The King of the Monsters has evolved over the years from nuclear terror to kid-friendly superhero to reluctant protector of Earth and back again, but the G-beast we meet in ‘Minus One’ may be the most ruthless of them all. Just one look at his blazing eyes says it all. And his atomic breath this time – in which the plates on his spine and tail not just light up but emerge out of his flesh – is less like a living flamethrower and more like a concentrated burst of lethal energy that erupts into an unmistakable mushroom cloud.
By the way, the VFX in ‘Godzilla Minus One’ are remarkable, and the film itself reportedly cost the Japanese equivalent of $15 million. That’s the catering bill for most Hollywood tentpoles, and yet Yamazaki and his team make this movie look like eight times more than its actual budget.
How does ‘Godzilla Minus One’ fit into the existing canon?
‘Godzilla Minus One’ opens in U.S. theaters on December 1st.
The ‘Godzilla’ franchise, which turns 70 in 2024, encompasses some 37 films, including 33 produced by Japanese studio Toho and four produced in Hollywood (one by Sony and three from Warner Bros., with a fourth on the way from the latter). The main Japanese series is broken up into different eras, and each era is more or less self-contained, with a basic continuity. Each new era has pretty much rebooted the monster and the series.
So where does ‘Godzilla Minus One’ fit into this? It’s part of the ‘Reiwa’ era, which as of now only contains three animated films and two live-action: this one and ‘Shin Godzilla.’ Both live-action entries are standalone features, and ‘Godzilla Minus One’ is set in the late 1940s, several years earlier than the very first movie, ‘Gojira,’ which was released and ostensibly took place in 1954.
Yet ‘Minus One’ is not a prequel, although with a little bit of strained retconning, it could perhaps serve as one. Instead, it could be seen as a self-contained semi-reboot of the Godzilla origin story, a second story adjacent to the original film, or perhaps even a loose remake of the first film. Its mood and themes echo those of the original – focusing on the grief, shame, and anger of post-war Japan – yet it tells the story in its own fresh way while paying vast amounts of respect to the original movie, right down to the use of Akira Ifukube’s classic Godzilla theme. And the door for a sequel is wide open.
Final Thoughts
‘Godzilla Minus One’ opens in U.S. theaters on December 1st.
While the original ‘Gojira’ is one of our favorite science fiction/monster movies and there are many worthy entries in the series overall (including a couple of the American ones), ‘Godzilla Minus One’ is the first in our view to have the same impact as the 1954 film that kicked the entire franchise off. It’s not perfect, of course – there are spots where it’s a little too sentimental or melodramatic – but this is a movie that not only delivers on the kind of giant monster action we all want to see, but gives us three-dimensional human characters we care about and a central premise that carries real gravitas. This is the Godzilla movie that we’ve been waiting for.
‘Godzilla Minus One’ receives 9 out of 10 stars.
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What is the plot of ‘Godzilla Minus One’?
Directed by Takashi Yamazaki, ‘Godzilla Minus One’ takes place just after World War II, when Japan has no self-defense force and no armaments. The movie asks the question: What happens if Godzilla comes to Japan while it is completely disarmed? Meanwhile, after losing his honor in the war, Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) creates a surrogate family with Noriko Oishi (Minami Hamabe) just when Godzilla attacks again.
‘Godzilla Minus One’ opens in U.S. theaters on December 1st.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with director Takashi Yamazaki and actor Ryunosuke Kamiki about their work on ‘Godzilla Minus One,’ retelling the Godzilla mythology, the human story at the heart of the movie, Kamiki-San’s performance, the VFX and look of the creature, and why Godzilla is still popular around the world for almost 70 years.
(L to R) Director Takashi Yamazaki and Ryunosuke Kamiki discuss ‘Godzilla Minus One.’
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interviews.
Note: This interview was conducted with the use of an interpreter.
Moviefone: To begin with, Yamazaki-San, can you talk about developing the screenplay and what you wanted to do differently with the Godzilla mythology?
Takashi Yamazaki: My intention when I sat down to write the script was that Godzilla is big and is massive. So, it’s hard sometimes. Sometimes the story is told where you switch to Godzilla and then you switch to the human story, and they end up kind of existing independently. But I really wanted to make sure that they were intertwined in a balanced way so that the human drama and whatever’s going on with Godzilla had the right balance. I think especially it’s also reflective of the first movie where there was a good balance with Godzilla and the human story. So, I wanted to make sure of that and the other component about having that balance is that they both must be as interesting or else one is going to win over the other, the Godzilla or the human story is going to win over the other and create this imbalance.
MF: Kamiki-San, can you please discus your character, where he is emotionally when the film begins, and why he feels like he has lost his honor?
Ryunosuke Kamiki: I haven’t personally experienced any war, so coming into the war aspect of this film, I really wasn’t sure about my approach. I started doing research and reading, of course talking with the director, and then I started also looking into those who have experienced war and how it affects them both before they go to the war and after they come back. So, I just emotionally put myself into those circumstances and I can’t say for sure if I was able to achieve anything, but I did my best to live in those circumstances.
MF: Can you talk about the surrogate family that Shikishima creates with Noriko and Akiko and how they give him the strength to live?
RK: I feel that before Shikishima meets Noriko and Akiko, that he’s questioning himself, “Should I live, do I even deserve to live?” Noriko and Akiko create a place for Shikishima to be and to exist. Then on top of that, Godzilla comes back. That faux family dream is kind of destroyed, and Shikishima then turns into vengeance.
‘Godzilla Minus One’ opens in U.S. theaters on December 1st.
MF: Yamazaki-San, can you talk about the VFX you used to create the movie and how you wanted this version of Godzilla to look?
TY: So, when it comes to the design for Godzilla, for example, I was very deliberate in making him be the most powerful of all the Godzillas that have come before. The great thing is that I was able to design Godzilla myself so I could just use a 3D software tool. I wanted it to be a Godzilla where if I found it selling at a store, that I would want to buy it. So, I was able to create a Godzilla to my liking. Now, the VFX, you must keep in mind that unlike Hollywood, generally Japanese budgets are lower and usually crew as well are smaller than what’s available in the U.S. But we were still aiming for a Hollywood-level VFX. This is something I’ve always done as a director, is to constantly be checking the VFX. So VFX, a lot of time is about trial and error, but as soon as someone’s done adjusting something, I would go and check right away. Other productions might just do a check once a week or whatever, but I am constant, I’m doing multiple checks a day. So, in that way, that’s how the VFX workflow was.
MF: Finally, for both of you, why do you think Godzilla as a character has lasted as long as it has and is still so popular around the world today?
TY: It’s the concept of an animal or object absorbing so much evil energy, or the negativity of the world, that it takes shape. And I also feel that Godzilla is what is taking shape, and it’s up to us humans not to kill it necessary, but to calm it. This needs a cycle every couple of decades. I think maybe it’s just the timing that we need to be reminded and go through the exercise of visualizing your worries, evils and whatever’s going on in the world, and going through the journey and going through this process of calming those negative energies in the form of Godzilla.
‘Godzilla Minus One’ opens in U.S. theaters on December 1st.
RK: I think in the world of Godzilla, each generation are under their different circumstances, and they must fight against Godzilla in that context. But I think when you’re going through those battles, the values of those people at that era are reflected. So, I think it’s important for people now to be able to put a mirror up to yourself and just reflect what your values are right now in this day. So, I think that’s what really resonates with people around the world. It’s a good time to reflect and obviously fun to see how Godzilla is defeated by each generation.
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What is the plot of ‘Godzilla Minus One’?
Directed by Takashi Yamazaki, ‘Godzilla Minus One’ takes place just after World War II, when Japan has no self-defense force and no armaments. The movie asks the question: What happens if Godzilla comes to Japan while it is completely disarmed? Meanwhile, after losing his honor in the war, Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) creates a surrogate family with Noriko Oishi (Minami Hamabe) just when Godzilla attacks again.
