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. The film made its way over to the United States in December… and it became the highest grossing live-action Japanese film in North America even before a black and white version was released under the title Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color. Director Takashi Yamazaki has let it be known that he’s interested in making a sequel, and during a new interview with Empire magazine he revealed that he would like to feature some “kaiju vs. kaiju” action in the follow-up, if Toho lets him make it!

Yamazaki 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.“

Written and directed by Yamazaki, Godzilla Minus One sees an already devastated postwar Japan facing a new threat in the form of Godzilla. 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. 

The film stars Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Sakura Ando, and Kuranosuke Sasaki, with music by Naoki Sato.

Toho’s Koji Ueda has said, “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.’“

Yamazaki directed a trilogy of Always: Sunset on Third Street films, as well as Juvenile, Returner, Ballad, Space Battleship Yamato, Friends: Naki on the Monster Island, The Fighter Pilot, Stand by Me Doraemon, Stand by Me Doraemon 2 (with Ryuichi Yagi), Parasyte: Part 1 and 2, Fueled: The Man They Called ‘Pirate’, Destiny: The Tale of Kamakura, The Great War of Archimedes, Dragon Quest: Your Story, Lupin III: The First, and Ghost Book Obakezukan. 

Toho brought Godzilla Minus One to the states in its original Japanese version, with English subtitles. The film secured a PG-13 rating for its U.S. release. This is Toho’s 33rd film in the franchise. The most recent entries were the 2016 live-action film Shin Godzilla and a trilogy of animated features; Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters, Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle, and Godzilla: The Planet Eater. While Toho sends this one out into the world, Legendary is keeping their own Godzilla MonsterVerse alive with Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (which is set to reach theatres on March 15, 2024) and the Apple TV+ series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.

If Toho were to let Yamazaki make a Godzilla Minus One sequel, it would be the first sequel in their franchise since 2002’s Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla received the direct follow-up Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. in 2003. While the Godzilla films released in the Shōwa era had some connection to each other, and same for the films in the Heisei era, (most of) the films released during the Millennium era and the current Reiwa era have been designed to be standalone entries.

Would you like to see Takashi Yamazaki get to make a “kaiju vs. kaiju” sequel to Godzilla Minus One? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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