Takashi Yamazaki did everything he could to leave the fairytale success of Godzilla Minus One behind as he set out to make its sequel, Godzilla Minus Zero. The task was steep: Minus One drew rapturous reviews, became the highest-grossing Japanese live-action film ever released in the United States and won the Oscar for best visual effects, making Yamazaki, who also served as VFX supervisor, the first director to win in that category since Stanley Kubrick.
The filmmaker, dubbed the Japanese James Cameron, received praise from Cameron himself as well as Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams. Hollywood was eager to hire him, but he told The Hollywood Reporter through a translator that he had unfinished business with the King of the Monsters. "A lot of producers and very big names in Hollywood reached out to me, and there were several projects I wish I could have jumped on in a heartbeat," Yamazaki said. "But I felt I needed to do Godzilla Minus Zero first because there was a story and theme I wanted to explore."
Despite the adulation from the United States, including from the filmmaking heroes of his youth, Yamazaki made a conscious effort not to write the sequel with an American sensibility in mind. He said Minus One's strength came from not chasing a worldwide audience, and that he resisted what he called selling out by tailoring a film to American fans, choosing instead to tell a story that felt important at home.
He also pushed his collaborators to relax rather than chase the earlier film's success. "The moment you begin to feel the pressure, you've already lost," he said, recalling that he told his team, "Guys, stop clenching your fists. Let's relax a little bit." He said the group agreed the biggest motivation was not to outdo Minus One but simply to make a great movie.
Godzilla Minus Zero, the first Japanese motion picture filmed for IMAX, has already earned critical acclaim on par with its predecessor. The kaiju epic picks up in 1949, two years after the events of Minus One, as the Shikishima family once again takes up arms against a new threat in the form of King Ghidorah. Yamazaki said he deliberately avoided revisiting past Godzilla and Ghidorah battles, though he acknowledged that scenes and poster images burned into his memory inevitably crept into the work through osmosis, including Legendary's interpretation of Ghidorah.
The film also features a cameo from Kong: Skull Island director Jordan Vogt-Roberts. Yamazaki said Vogt-Roberts, a frequent visitor to Japan, asked over dinner to be in the next Godzilla movie. Yamazaki agreed on one condition: the beard had to go. Vogt-Roberts shaved, flew to Japan for the shoot and, in Yamazaki's telling, delivered a strong performance in a scene with a nuanced emotional message.
Abrams' admiration for Minus One helped pave the way for him to produce Yamazaki's upcoming English-language debut, Grandgear, a live-action take on the mecha genre that Yamazaki said has been thoroughly explored in Japanese anime but never really done in live-action. He said the project was not driven by a priority to make a Hollywood film, but by the moment aligning with the kind of movie he wanted to make.
As for whether he has a third Godzilla film in him, Yamazaki put the odds at fifty-fifty. "I'm quite satisfied and happy with the current ending we have," he said, noting it entrusts interpretation to the audience. Still, he added that if Minus Zero were his last Godzilla film, that would make him a bit sad, and that at some point in his career he would love to revisit Godzilla and expand the world.
Toho's Godzilla Minus Zero opens in theaters on Friday, Nov. 6.
