Excellent news, subjects of the King of all Monsters: Oscar-winning director Takashi Yamazaki is returning to the world of Godzilla.
This morning, as Yamazaki’s blockbuster record-maker Godzilla Minus One returns to theaters in celebration of the 70th anniversary of the original 1954 classic, Toho confirmed that it has greenlit a new Godzilla movie with Yamazaki at the helm. As he did with Minus One, Yamazaki will write, direct, and supervise VFX. No further details were announced about the movie, including whether or not Yamazaki’s new project would be a direct sequel to Godzilla Minus One or a new, standalone entry in the wider franchise.
Minus One concluded with the titular monster seemingly killed thanks to the efforts of former kamikaze pilot Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) before he could devastate post-war Japan, but its final moments teased Godzilla slowly regenerating from his mortal wounds in the depths of the ocean—as well as a potentially sinister reason behind the miraculous survival of Shikishima’s love interest, Noriko (Shin Kamen Rider‘s Minami Hamabe), who Yamazaki recently revealed was going to perish in early drafts of the film.
“Truth be told, the very first draft, Noriko dies. So I read it over and over again, and I thought, ‘Can we really do that to Shikishima?’” Yamazaki told fans at a New York Comic Con panel last month celebrating 70 years of Godzilla movies. “After all those journeys, all the hills and mountains he had to climb, defeating Godzilla, he’d come home, and there was no one? That would just be too tragic.” It was only during filming that Yamazaki decided to place VFX markers on Hamabe’s neck, and decided to tease a potential dark cost to her survival in the form of a growing bruise running up her neck as she and Shikishima embrace in the film’s final moments.
We’ll have to wait and see if Yamazaki plans to follow up on that, or is taking Godzilla in a new direction entirely. But we’re very happy to see him partnering up with the biggest star in cinema once more. We’ll bring you more on Yamazaki’s plans for Godzilla as and when we learn them.
