Godzilla Minus Zero Gets a Hollywood Standing Ovation a Week Before Release
He's back. He's taller.
Godzilla Minus Zero had its Hollywood premiere at the TCL Chinese Theatre last night, and the crowd gave director Takashi Yamazaki and stars Ryunosuke Kamiki and Minami Hamabe a standing ovation (DiscussingFilm). The sequel to Godzilla Minus One opens in Japan on November 3 and in North America on November 6, with early IMAX showings in the US on November 3.
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Here's the second official trailer from Toho.
What is Godzilla Minus Zero about?
The story picks up in 1949, two years after Godzilla sank in Sagami Bay. A new monster attacks Matsumoto City, and regular weapons barely slow it down. Godzilla regenerates and comes back to fight it. Former kamikaze pilot Kōichi Shikishima, played again by Kamiki, gets pulled back into the war he thought he'd left behind (Wikipedia).
The trailers have already shown that the new threat is King Ghidorah. It starts out with a single head and grows into the full three-headed version later in the movie (a very rude glow-up). The trailers also show Godzilla in New York City, right next to the Statue of Liberty.
What did Toho's CEO say about the first movie?
At the Tokyo International Film Festival this week, Toho CEO Matsuoka Hiro said the company's decision to release Godzilla Minus One in the US itself was "all a coincidence" (Deadline). He said US theater owners told him studios weren't making enough movies. So Toho decided to try bringing its own films over.
That gamble paid off in a big way. Minus One opened to more than $11.4 million in North America in December 2023. It became the highest-grossing live-action Japanese film ever there, and it won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. "It wasn't a strategy; we just tried," Matsuoka said.
How big could Minus Zero be?
The early signs are strong. The sequel holds a 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes from its festival reviews, and it's the first Japanese production filmed for IMAX. An October forecast from Boxoffice Pro projected a $25 million to $35 million opening weekend in the US and Canada. That would be more than double what Minus One made in its first weekend.
It's also the first Godzilla movie rated R in the US, for violent content and bloody images. GKIDS, Toho's label, is distributing it in North America.
My read is that Minus Zero could be the biggest Godzilla surprise since 2023. If it lands anywhere near that forecast, Toho's coincidence turns into a real franchise plan.
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All images are official stills from Godzilla Minus Zero from Toho.
