Since it first terrorized Tokyo in Ishirō Honda’s 1954 film, Godzilla has faced off against nearly every single kaiju known to man—Mothra, Ghidorah, Megalon, Gigan, Biollante, etc.—like a champion boxer defending their belts. Its last bout was with King Kong in 2021, and its next will be a rematch against the same opponent in the 2024 Hollywood production Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. But before all that, director Takashi Yamazaki plans to take the monster back to its city-squashing roots with his highly anticipated Japanese production Godzilla Minus One.
Earlier this year, Yamazaki had this to say about what will be the thirty-seventh installment in the Godzilla franchise: “Postwar Japan has lost everything. The film depicts an existence that gives unprecedented despair. The title Godzilla Minus One was created with this in mind. In order to depict this, the staff and I have worked together to create a setting where Godzilla looks as if ‘fear’ itself is walking toward us, and where despair is piled on top of despair. I think this is the culmination of all the films I have made to date, and one that deserves to be ‘experienced’ rather than ‘watched’ in the theater. I hope you will experience the most terrifying Godzilla in the best possible environment.”
Godzilla Minus One will end a seven-year drought of Toho live-action Godzilla films (the last was Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi’s Shin Godzilla) and, judging by the trailer, looks set to reanimate, and perhaps add detail to, the creature’s origins in a Japan that has, as the synopsis reads, “been reduced to zero.” The film will premiere at the Tokyo Film Festival in November to mark the seventieth anniversary of Honda’s original before receiving a nationwide release in the US on December 1.
Watch the new trailer below.
