Godzilla Minus Zero, director Takashi Yamazaki’s hotly anticipated sequel, will make its world premiere next month at the New York Film Festival.
The followup to the Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One, which grossed $116 million worldwide and charmed audiences with its modestly budgeted special effects, will be a Spotlight Gala selection at Alice Tully Hall on September 26.
Yamazaki and members of the cast and crew are slated to attend the premiere. At the 2024 Oscars ceremony, the director and his visual effects team left a lasting impression with their unbridled joy. Yamazaki became the first director since Stanley Kubrick to win for Best Visual Effects.
The sequel picks up in 1949, two years after the events of Godzilla Minus One, and continues the story of the Shikishima family facing a new series of pulse-racing events. It is scheduled to open in North American theaters on November 6, just three days after its bow in Japan.
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“It is truly an honor to introduce our film to a global audience for the first time in a place of such history and prestige,” Yamazaki said in a statement. “I am filled with both awe and excitement to see how far the power of Japan’s Godzilla can terrify audiences around the world, and whether they will resonate with what lies beyond that fear.”
Gozilla Minus One, released by GKIDS, was able to breathe new life into a franchise that dates to the mid-20th century. It is now the third-highest-grossing foreign-language film at the U.S. box office.
“More than 70 years after the first Godzilla movie, Takashi Yamazaki continues to prove that there’s life in the old franchise yet, returning to its postwar roots to locate a haunting, primal terror,” festival artistic director Dennis Lim said. “Like its predecessor, Godzilla Minus Zero is a throwback blockbuster, a showcase for human drama and innovative craft, and we are excited to have its world premiere as this year’s NYFF Spotlight Gala.”
Yamazaki, who has credited Hollywood blockbusters with influencing his work in special effects, made his debut as a director with 2000 film Juvenile, going on to become a leading figure in visual expression and VFX in Japan. His films Always: Sunset on Third Street, The Eternal Zero and Stand by Me Doraemon have collected many Japan Academy Film Awards, among other honors.
The 64th New York Film Festival will run from September 25 to October 12.
