is a 2023 Japanese kaiju film directed, written, and with visual effects by Takashi Yamazaki. Produced by Toho Studios and Robot and distributed by Toho Co., Ltd., 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.
Following 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 film would be Yamazaki's third on-screen depiction of Godzilla, as 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, and was the closing film at the 36th Tokyo International Film Festival on November 1, 2023. Toho is scheduled to release 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. Toho's American subsidiary Toho International will later distribute it in the United States and Canada on December 1.
Premise
Cast
Ryunosuke Kamiki as Kōichi Shikishima
Minami Hamabe as Noriko Ōishi
Yuki Yamada as Shirō Mizushima
Munetaka Aoki as Sōsaku Tachibana
Hidetaka Yoshioka as Kenji Noda
Sakura Ando as Sumiko Ōta
Kuranosuke Sasaki as Yōji Akitsu
The cast listing is sourced from the websites Natalie and SciFi Japan.
Production
Development and writing
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 and 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 during the COVID-19 pandemic and spent three years writing the script. 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 will reflect these events clearly. Yamazaki later revealed that he was inspired by Shusuke Kaneko's Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001) —which he has cited as his favorite Godzilla film— while writing the screenplay for Godzilla Minus One. 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 was also heavily influenced by the original 1954 Godzilla film.
Godzilla Minus One marks Yamazaki's third time working on a production utilizing Godzilla, having directed and co-written Always: Sunset on Third Street 2 (2007) which featured the fictional monster in the film's dream-like opening, and, 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.