Godzilla Minus One Director's Grandgear Lands Sam Nivola and Nico Parker
Giant robot energy.
Takashi Yamazaki, the director who gave us Godzilla Minus One, has found the stars for his first English-language movie. Sam Nivola and Nico Parker are set to lead Grandgear for Sony Pictures, and Paul Giamatti is in talks to join them, according to Deadline (Deadline via Yahoo). Nivola and Parker won the two biggest roles after a search and chemistry tests, and Giamatti was the filmmakers' top choice for his part.
Nobody has said who anyone is playing yet. Deadline says the plot is still under wraps.
What is Grandgear about?
Sony hasn't released an official logline, but we do have one big clue. Footage shown at CinemaCon in April featured a giant robot fighting a kaiju, filmed from the ground with a Cloverfield kind of feel (TheWrap). Yamazaki wrote the original screenplay himself, and J.J. Abrams is producing through Bad Robot with Glen Zipper. Sony won the movie in a bidding war back in November 2024 (Bloody Disgusting).
Who are Sam Nivola and Nico Parker?
Nivola broke out in The White Lotus and also appeared in White Noise and Maestro. Parker earned a BAFTA nomination for The Last of Us and played Astrid in the live-action How to Train Your Dragon. Giamatti doesn't need much of an introduction (we're still not over The Holdovers), and his next movie is A24's The Debut (ComingSoon).
When does Grandgear come out?
Production is expected to start in 2027, and Sony has the movie dated for January 14, 2028. That's a little earlier than its first date, after Sony moved it up from February 18, 2028 (ComingSoon).
Before then, Yamazaki has another monster movie on the way. Godzilla Minus Zero opens in Japan on November 3 and in North America on November 6 through GKIDS, and it's sitting at 95% on Rotten Tomatoes after its New York Film Festival premiere (Wikipedia). Godzilla Minus One won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects and made about $116 million worldwide on a budget of roughly $10 to $15 million (Wikipedia).
My read is that Yamazaki is the right person to make a big robot movie in Hollywood. He made Godzilla look terrifying on a fraction of a normal blockbuster budget, and he always keeps the human story at the center. Pair that with Abrams, who produced Cloverfield, and Grandgear has a real shot at being the kaiju movie people talk about in 2028.
If you want to catch up on Godzilla Minus One before Minus Zero arrives, it's on Amazon.
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Header image is a still from Godzilla Minus One from Toho. In-article photo of Takashi Yamazaki by Dodoeggs, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
