One of the great film stories of 2023 was the low-budget Japanese import “Godzilla Minus One,” which won the Oscar for Special Effects and was praised by the likes of Steven Spielberg and Guillermo del Toro.
Another superfan of “Godzilla Minus One” is none other than Christopher Nolan. Here he is describing why he finds it to be such a great film:
I thought it was a tremendous film. I thought it was so exciting. It’s beautifully made and the mechanics of it were so involving. There was wonderful depth to the characters and a wonderful sense of history that I really appreciated.
“Godzilla Minus One,” which was directed by Takashi Yamazaki, had a reported budget of $12-15 million. It was an incredible technical feat that used a combination of VFX and practical effects to create it’s breathless action sequences. As Nolan stated, the historical setting of the film also brought some much needed depth to this Gojira.
The film recently ended its record-breaking box-office run with over $107 million earned worldwide and $56 million earned domestically. This is Toho's 33rd Godzilla film. Yamazaki was high influenced by the original 1954 Godzilla in making it, and it showed.
Yamazaki has hinted at making a film in response to Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” which only depicted the point of view of the bombmakers, “as a person of Japanese ancestry and descent, my response to ‘Oppenheimer’ [is that] I would like to dedicate a different film to that when that day comes,” Yamazaki told NBC when asked for his thoughts on Nolan’s biopic.
Commenting on ‘Godzilla’ and Oppenheimer’s parallel success, he said the “juxtaposition was not intentional.” Yamazaki explained, “As we were making the film, the state of the world and the geopolitical scene has changed quite a bit. It almost feels fated that both of these films were released in the same year.”