Godzilla Minus One Release Date, Cast, Director And More Info

Nearly 70 years ago, monster movies changed forever with the introduction of Godzilla. The Japanese prehistoric monster awoke from its slumber in 1954 to terrorize villagers from Odo Island, announcing its presence with loud, lumbering footsteps and a bone-chilling roar. Since the original "Godzilla," kaiju movies have become a subgenre all their own, populated by epic monsters like Mothra and Ghidorah, with regular installments that range from corny to incredible.

In recent years, Hollywood has gotten in on the Godzilla game with Legendary Pictures' own spin on the world of giant monsters. But as exciting as it is to watch Kyle Chandler, Brian Tyree Henry, and Millie Bobby Brown face off against Godzilla, Japanese studio Toho (home to the vast majority of Godzilla flicks ever made) has something even more thrilling up its sleeve: a movie that looks poised to recapture the post-war terror of the beloved original. "Godzilla Minus One" is still a few months away, but it's never too early to prepare yourself for a kaiju attack — by checking out everything we know about the movie so far.

American "Godzilla" fans will be able to see the monster wreak havoc in theaters beginning December 1, 2023. Audiences in the movie's home country of Japan will get an earlier look, as "Godzilla Minus One" is set to premiere November 3, 2023 there. That date has been dubbed "Godzilla Day" as it marks the anniversary of the original kaiju film's release way back in 1954. The latest "Godzilla" movie will be the first of the Toho Studios films to get a theatrical release in America since 2016's "Shin Godzilla."

"Godzilla Minus One" will also get a major film festival debut. According to Anime News Network, the movie nabbed the closing night spot at this year's Tokyo International Film Festival, where it will screen on November 1. With Wim Wenders' "Perfect Days" set to open the fest and Wenders presiding over the competition jury, "Godzilla Minus One" will make its debut in great company.

Plot details for "Godzilla Minus One" are limited, but official synopses and a first look at the film indicate that it might follow in the giant footsteps of the very first movie in the franchise, 1954's Ishirō Honda movie "Godzilla" — which was also released via Toho. Here's the brief synopsis for the movie that was shared via TIFF:

After the war, Japan has been reduced to zero. Godzilla appears and plunges the country into a negative state. Against the most desperate situation in the history of Japan, how — and with whom — will Japan stand up to it?

The war in question is World War II, which changed Japan forever as the country, initially part of Axis forces, ended up under Allied occupation and was infamously subject to the first and only two uses of the atomic bomb. The original "Godzilla" took place against the backdrop of this tragic legacy, and the new movie looks like it's set to explore it further. The tagline shared in conjunction with its trailer reads: "In postwar Japan, a new terror rises; Godzilla. Will the devastated people be able to survive ... let alone fight back?"

According to a cast list shared by SciFi Japan, Minami Hamabe is set to star in the film as "a strong woman living alone in a burnt-out post-war Japan." Her character, Noriki Oishi, meets a war survivor named Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) who appears to be the film's other lead. Koichi lost his parents in World War II, but we don't know much else about him at this point. 

Hamabe is a popular young star in Japan who has been acting since she was a kid in movies like "Ace Attorney" and "Shin Kamen Rider," plus TV shows like "Kakegurui" and "Something's Wrong With Us." Kamiki also has a long history in the film industry, having provided voiceover work for movies like "Spirited Away," "Howl's Moving Castle," and "Your Name," as well as starring in live-action roles.

Other cast members listed in press materials include Yuki Yamada ("High & Low"), Munetaka Aoki ("Battle Royale II"), Hidetaka Yoshioka ("Rhapsody in August"), Sakura Ando ("Shoplifters"), and Kuranosuke Sasaki ("My Home Hero").

"Godzilla Minus One" is directed by Takashi Yamazaki, who also wrote the movie and provided visual effects. An acclaimed filmmaker with multiple Japanese Academy Awards under his belt, Yamazaki has directed movies including "Lupin III: The First" (pictured above), "Stand By Me Doraemon," and "Dragon Quest: Your Story." Though not best-known as a "Godzilla" director, this isn't actually the first time Yamazaki has incorporated the giant beast into his works. The filmmaker snuck a Godzilla sequence into the movie "Always: Sunset on Third Street 2" and designed a Godzilla ride at a famous Japanese theme park.

In a press release shared by SciFi Japan, Yamazaki talked a bit about his vision for the new film, saying:

"The film depicts an existence that gives unprecedented despair. The title 'Godzilla Minus One' was created with this in mind. In order to depict this, the staff and I have worked together to create a setting where Godzilla looks as if "fear" itself is walking toward us, and where despair is piled on top of despair. I think this is the culmination of all the films I have made to date, and one that deserves to be 'experienced' rather than 'watched' in the theater."

While Yamazaki wrote the new film, it's set to be produced by teams from both Toho Studios, the company that first introduced Godzilla to the world, and Robot, a studio that Yamazaki has worked with on several movies — including the Godzilla guest-starring "Always: Sunset on Third Street 2" — before. In addition to its defining work in the kaiju subgenre, Toho is also famous for working with legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, who worked with Toho for much of his career. They've also delivered popular anime adaptations including "My Hero Academia" and "Jujutsu Kaisen."

Nikkan Sports has confirmed that "Shin Godzilla" producer Minami Ichikawa is returning to produce the latest Godzilla film, while Kazuaki Kishida, Keiichiro Moriya, and Kenji Yamada are all listed as producers on the project's IMDb page, though their involvement does not yet seem to have been officially confirmed.

The trailer for "Godzilla Minus One" dropped on YouTube in early September, and has since already garnered an impressive 7.7 million views and counting. The first look at the new film shows off some ambitious special effects, as well as several key elements that seem to tie the movie back to the original, classic "Godzilla." A postwar Japan setting, an injured young man, boat attacks and underwater explosions, atomic bomb-like imagery, and Godzilla's creature design and signature roar all seem to pay homage to the Honda film.

The "Godzilla Minus One" trailer includes plenty of carnage and terror, but it also features an intriguing voiceover declaring, "That monster will never forgive us." Will this version of Godzilla be, as Honda's was, an unwitting product of nuclear war that didn't ask to be born (or killed)? Given how closely the imagery here hews to the original film, it seems likely. You can catch the full 88-second trailer above.

Though it features some obvious visual callbacks to 1954's "Godzilla," the latest movie is actually the fifth installment in Toho's Reiwa era. This doesn't mean that you have to watch other Godzilla films from this era in order to understand "Godzilla Minus One," but that the movie is more closely associated to films like "Shin Godzilla" and three recent anime films than it is to America's Legendary Pictures monster movies. The U.S. has made four Godzilla-related kaiju films in the past decade, and has both a fifth film and an Apple TV+ series on the horizon. These projects, though, are considered wholly separate from Toho's endeavors and have been dubbed the "MonsterVerse."

To date, there are at least 38 Godzilla films, the majority of which have come from Japan's Toho Studios. These movies are not always inter-related, as evidenced by the other four installments in the Reiwa era, which began in 2016. "Shin Godzilla" is a live-action film set in the present day, while the anime trilogy that begins with "Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters" takes place 20,000 years in the future. Thus, though "Godzilla Minus One" is part of the Reiwa era of Godzilla films, you don't actually have to watch any of its predecessors before heading to theaters to catch "Godzilla Minus One" beginning December 1, 2023.