Takashi Yamazaki is hard at work on the script and storyboards for the sequel to his Godzilla movie, Godzilla Minus One
Back in 2023, Toho released a new Godzilla film, titled Godzilla Minus One (read our review HERE), in Japan on November 3rd, which happens to be Godzilla Day, the anniversary of the 1954 release of the original Godzilla movie. To celebrate the anniversary last year, they announced that they’ve given the greenlight to a new Godzilla movie that will be written and directed by Godzilla Minus One mastermind Takashi Yamazaki, who will also be handling the visual effects. Now, Variety has been able to catch up with Yamazaki and confirm that “he’s currently working on the screenplay and storyboards for the new Godzilla movie.”
Yamazaki managed to make Godzilla Minus One for a budget of less than $15 million, and he mentioned to Variety that “expects to have more budget this time around from Toho, though he didn’t have an exact figure.”
Godzilla Minus One saw an already devastated postwar Japan facing a new threat in the form of Godzilla. Toho’s Koji Ueda provided the synopsis: “Set in a post-war Japan, Godzilla Minus One will once again show us a Godzilla that is a terrifying and overwhelming force, which you already get a sense of from the teaser trailer and poster. The concept is that Japan, which had already been devastated by the war, faces a new threat with Godzilla, bringing the country into the ‘minus.’“ The film stars Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Sakura Ando, and Kuranosuke Sasaki, with music by Naoki Sato. Interestingly, one of Yamazaki’s previous credits is the 2007 film Always: Sunset on Third Street 2, which features a Godzilla cameo in a fantasy sequence.
Details on Yamazaki’s follow-up have not been revealed, but the filmmaker was always open about the fact that he was hoping to get the chance to make a sequel. He has said, “I would certainly like to see what the sequel would look like. I know that Shikishima’s war seems over, and we’ve reached this state of peace and calm – but perhaps [it’s the] calm before the storm, and the characters have not yet been forgiven for what has been imposed upon them. … I don’t know that anyone has pulled off a more serious tone of kaiju-versus-kaiju with human drama, and that challenge is something that I’d like to explore. When you have movies that feature [kaiju battles], I think it’s very easy to put the spotlight and the camera on this massive spectacle, and it detaches itself from the human drama component.” He went on to say that he would have to “make sure that the human drama and whatever’s happening between [the] kaiju both have meaning, and both are able to affect one another in terms of plot development.“
Variety caught up with Yamazaki at the Visual Effects Society Awards, where he accepted the Society’s Visionary Award. AI was a hot topic at the ceremony, and Yamazaki said, “It’s a very capable assistant or tool, as it stands right now, but it is not at the point where it can kind of take center stage and generate what humans can. Right now, it’s not in any of our pipelines because of that reason, but the speed at which AI evolves is just so immense that where it goes from here remains to be seen.” He added that he’s likely to be a late adopter of the technology. “Until recently, I’ve been still shooting on film and I like to use miniatures. So I know that someday we’re going to have to embrace and kind of work with AI, but I’m probably going to be one of the later ones because I do like working with older technology and techniques.“
Yamazaki recently signed on to make his English language debut with a film called Grandgear for Sony Pictures and Bad Robot, but it sounds like he might end up making the Godzilla Minus One sequel for Toho first. Are you glad to hear he’s hard at work on the sequel? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
