Japanese writer/director Takashi Yamazaki is having a bit of a moment after his big Oscar win for the fantastic VFX work on “Godzilla Minus One,” and next month he’s returning with an amped-up R-rated follow-up titled “Godzilla Minus Zero.” While the promotional tour for the film is well underway, Yamazaki is talking up what films helped influence the sequel and is gushing about how James Cameron‘s body of work, specifically how he raised the stakes with “Aliens” and “Terminator 2,” helped inspire his latest kaiju epic.
“I’m going to have to give credit to James Cameron,” Yamazaki told Empire Magazine, citing the filmmaker’s films such as “Aliens” and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” as some of his favorite sequels. “He looks at the original and finds another interesting hook point and digs much deeper. Oftentimes his sequels will take a slightly different angle, but still rooted in a lot of what was built in the first film. I was curious how his second films are outperforming the originals in a lot of ways.”
An official synopsis from distributor GKIDS:
“War reduced Japan to zero, and Godzilla plunged it into minus. Two years have passed since then, and the country has faced agonizing struggles to achieve recovery and finally reclaim its daily life. Just as humanity managed to cling to a hard-won peace, a new threat strikes, crushing hope in an instant. There is no third time. Everything ends here.“
Yamazaki also talked up the direction of the story changing a little from the last one when speaking with the outlet, “The shift from Shikishima [played by Ryunosuke Kamiki and is the returning lead of the last movie, a Japanese pilot, who was conflicted about his military service] as an individual, to putting the focus on the family, was a different vector for ‘Minus Zero.’ Adding that it will also continue to explore an allegorical story of Japan’s post-war state of mind at this period of time. “I think there are parallels between the recovery of Japan at the time, and the building of the Shikishima family,” he explained to Empire. “In ‘Minus Zero,’ the state of the country as well as the state of Shikishima’s family is improving. Hence, they’re approaching ‘zero’ in a way, and a new threat appears that basically threatens to take that away.”
We’ll be curious to see if Yamazaki continues working with Japanese studio Toho in the future on more “Godzilla” installments beyond “Minus Zero,” as Hollywood has come calling and the in-demand filmmaker has two English-language projects in the works with the “Grandgear” at Sony Pictures (J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot also in the mix by producing it), and the Ridley Scott-produced “Nue” that has the backing of Disney/20th Century Studios.
Audiences, thankfully, won’t have to wait too much longer for “Godzilla Minus Zero” as it will be unleashed in both IMAX and traditional theaters on November 6, after making its North American debut back at the New York Film Festival.
