Toho and GKIDS released a new full trailer Tuesday for “Godzilla Minus Zero,” the sequel to 2023’s “Godzilla Minus One,” which remains the only entry in the franchise’s more than 70-year history to win an Academy Award. The footage, subtitled in English, opens on an ominous line acknowledging that the threat from the previous film was never fully resolved, setting up a new crisis that arrives just as the characters manage to secure a fragile peace.
The film returns writer-director Takashi Yamazaki, along with lead actors Ryunosuke Kamiki and Minami Hamabe reprising their roles as Kōichi Shikishima, a former kamikaze pilot who confronted Godzilla in the first film, and his wife, Noriko. Set in 1949 Japan, two years after the events of “Minus One,” the sequel introduces several new characters, including Masami Nagasawa as a weather forecaster and Jun Kunimura as a doctor, alongside returning cast members Hidetaka Yoshioka, Yuki Yamada, Kuranosuke Sasaki and Sakura Ando. Yamazaki has said the creature itself remains the same size as in the previous installment, despite early speculation it would grow larger for the follow-up.
“Godzilla Minus Zero” carries several distinctions within the franchise. It is the first Japanese Godzilla production filmed for Imax and, at 135 minutes, will stand as the longest Japanese-made entry in the series. The film will hold its world premiere as the Spotlight Gala selection of the New York Film Festival on Sept. 26, then screen as the centerpiece presentation of the Tokyo Film Festival in November, before opening in Japan on Nov. 3 and reaching North American theaters three days later, marking the fastest wide release a Japanese Godzilla film has ever received in the U.S. Filmmaker James Cameron has publicly praised Yamazaki’s work on the earlier film ahead of the sequel’s arrival.
