“Godzilla Minus One” is a Japanese film starring the well-known kaiju monster.
Let’s dive into some trivia and facts about the film.
- Godzilla Minus One is a 2023 Japanese kaiju film
- It is directed, written, and with visual effects by Takashi Yamazaki
- Produced by Toho Studios and Robot Communications
- And distributed by Toho
- It is the 37th film in the Godzilla franchise
- Toho’s 33rd Godzilla film
- And the fifth film in the franchise’s Reiwa era
- The film stars Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Sakura Ando, and Kuranosuke Sasaki
- In the film, postwar Japan deals with the emergence of Godzilla
- After the release of his film The Great War of Archimedes (2019), Yamazaki was selected to make a Godzilla film
- He subsequently wrote the script over the course of three years
- Taking influence from the original 1954 Godzilla film and Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)
- The movie is Yamazaki’s third on-screen depiction of Godzilla
- He had previously used Godzilla through computer-generated imagery in Always: Sunset on Third Street 2 (2007) and Godzilla the Ride (2021) at Seibu-en Amusement Park
- In February 2022, Robot publicized that Yamazaki was soon to begin directing a kaiju film via a casting call on their website
- Filming occurred primarily in Kantō and Chūbu from March to June 2022
- Shirogumi handled the visual effects at their studio in Chōfu from circa April 2022 to May 2023
- Godzilla Minus One had its premiere screening at the Shinjuku Toho Building on October 18, 2023
- It was the closing film at the 36th Tokyo International Film Festival
- Toho released it theatrically in Japan on November 3
- The same day as the first film was released throughout Japan in 1954
- To celebrate the franchise’s 70th anniversary
- The film has grossed $35 million against its $15 million budget
- The film received critical acclaim
- American critics praised the film’s visual effects, story, characters, social commentary, and compared it favorably with recent Hollywood films
- On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 96%
- Based on 83 reviews
- With an average score of 8.3/10
- The site’s consensus reads: “With engaging human stories anchoring the action, Godzilla Minus One is one kaiju movie that remains truly compelling between the scenes of mass destruction”
- Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 79 out of 100
- Based on 24 critics
- Indicating “generally favorable reviews”
- American audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “A” on an A+ to F scale
- While those polled by PostTrak gave it a 92% overall positive score
- With 83% saying they would definitely recommend the film
- During an interview published in the October 30th issue of Aera, director Takashi Yamazaki stated in regards to the film’s ending: “I think it’s more cinematic if it doesn’t end neatly and properly. It’s not just so a sequel can be made, it’s also so the characters are kept alive in the hearts of the audience”
- On the film’s opening day, Yamazaki also indicated that he desires to make another Godzilla film, saying: “I wonder if you’ll let me shoot one more picture?”
- After the release of Toho’s 2016 reboot Shin Godzilla, co-director Shinji Higuchi stated at the American fan convention G-Fest that Toho would not be able to produce another Godzilla film until after 2020
- This was due to their contract with Legendary Pictures, who were producing their own Godzilla films
- That forbade Toho from releasing their potential Godzilla films in the same year as Legendary’s films
- In 2018, Toho executive Keiji Ota revealed that Shin Godzilla would not receive a sequel
- Ota expressed interest in a potential shared universe Godzilla series akin to the Marvel Cinematic Universe
- In 2019, following the release of his film The Great War of Archimedes, renowned filmmaker Takashi Yamazaki was appointed to make a Godzilla film.
- He began preparing the project and initially spending a year developing the script, however, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the crew to postpone filming for a few years
- Allowing the script to be rewritten
- The screenplay was reportedly completed over the course of three years
- Yamazaki said in an interview for the Japanese magazine Aera that the worldwide anxiety and government unreliability during the pandemic was one of his major inspirations for the story
- He also expressed that he hopes the movie reflects these events clearly
- Yamazaki later revealed that he was heavily influenced by Shusuke Kaneko’s Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001) while writing the screenplay for Godzilla Minus One
- He has cited the 2001 film as his favorite Godzilla film
- He reflected in a discussion with Kaneko at a screening of GMK: “I had forgotten the contents of GMK for a while, but it seems like I self-consciously thought about it when writing the scenario for -1.0. Without realizing it, I was under considerable influence”
- Yamazaki has stated that Godzilla Minus One was also inspired by the original 1954 Godzilla film, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975), and the films of Hayao Miyazaki
- Godzilla (2014) director Gareth Edwards identified Spielberg’s films Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Jurassic Park (1993)
- As well as Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk (2017) as other potential influences on the film
- Godzilla Minus One marks Yamazaki’s third time working on a production utilizing Godzilla
- His first being Always: Sunset on Third Street 2 (2007) which featured the fictional monster in the film’s dream-like opening
- During preproduction on Minus One, he also directed and created the effects for Seibu-en Amusement Park’s motion simulator attraction Godzilla the Ride: Giant Monsters Ultimate Battle (2021)
- The design of Godzilla in Minus One is a variation of the one in Godzilla the Ride
- A novelization of the film written by Yamazaki was published in Japan by Shueisha on November 8, 2023
- On February 18, 2022, Robot Communications announced the film, under the working title Blockbuster Monster Movie, via a casting call on their official website
- Robot stated Yamazaki would direct and that the film would be presented by Toho
- The next day, HuffPost writer Kenji Ando mentioned the conjecture from fans on social media whether the film would be a remake of the 1954 film
- Toho declared that Yamazaki’s unnamed kaiju project is a Godzilla film on November 3, 2022, at an event celebrating the franchise’s 68th anniversary known as “Godzilla Day”
- The company also revealed that the film had completed filming and had entered post-production with a targeted release date of November 3, 2023
- Yamazaki was also named the film’s writer and visual effects supervisor
- During a press conference on December 13, 2022, Toho’s head of planning Hisashi Usui implied that the new film is connected to the 1954 film
- Visual effects were handled by Shirogumi at their studio in Chōfu, under the supervision of Yamazaki[30] and direction of Kiyoko Shibuya
- The team began creating the effects for Godzilla Minus One around April 2022, per the TV Shinshu special about Yamazaki that was released the following year
- Shirogumi revealed by opening a recruitment call for visual effects designers and compositors in August 2022, that post-production had begun and visual effects were taking place from that same month until January 2023
- They later changed the dates to between November 2022 and February 2023
- Their website also stated that the 3D animation software Houdini and Maya would be used to design and Nuke would be used to composite the visual effects
- Post-production concluded in late May 2023, after the visual effects were finished
- During an interview alongside Shinji Higuchi (co-director of Shin Godzilla), Yamazaki noted that Godzilla’s scenes of destruction in Minus One were inspired by Higuchi’s effects from Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris
- Directed by the above-mentioned Shusuke Kaneko
- Yamazaki’s frequent collaborator Naoki Satō scored the film
- Rambling Records released the film’s soundtrack album, entitled the Godzilla Minus One Original Soundtrack on CD in Japan on October 28, 2023
- A limited edition vinyl is scheduled to follow on November 24
- Stock tracks composed by Akira Ifukube for King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) and Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) were also used for some scenes in the film
- Producer Minami Ichikawa offered Ryunosuke Kamiki and Minami Hamabe the leading roles as a married couple in the film
- Prior to them playing similar roles in the NHK drama series Ranman (2023)
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