Toho greenlights new Godzilla movie from Godzilla Minus One creator

Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One was a minor revelation when it arrived in theaters last year. Eschewing expensive and over-drawn special effects, convoluted ‘verse building, or bombastic multi-monster pile-ups—i.e., all those things that have made the American Godzilla movies exhausting in recent years—the film instead told a focused, surprisingly poignant story about people overcoming their horror to save their homeland. It’s not just a great Godzilla movie, but a great movie, period, at least in part because Yamazaki kept a firm grasp on the movie’s human element even as he presented a restrained, but still very cool, version of its big, scary lizard.

Hence our excitement today, as Variety confirmed that studio Toho has green-lit a new Godzilla movie from the triumphant writer-director. At this point, no plot details have been revealed, so we don’t know yet whether this new film will build on the small breadcrumbs of plot left behind at the end of the earlier movie. (Are we finally going to find out what was going on with that weird bruise on Minami Hamabe’s neck in her last scene?) If we’re being honest, we’re less worried about the movie building on that lump of Godzilla flesh left behind at the bottom of the ocean at the previous movie’s conclusion, though, than we are about it building on the work Yamazaki did in making a Godzilla attack feel not just scary, but personal. (Meanwhile, the dumber part of our brains is just trying to figure out what you’d call the dang thing. Godzilla Minus One 2? Godzilla Minus One Plus One? Godzilla Minus Godzilla?)

Godzilla Minus One was a hit for Toho, earning $116 million off of a meager $15 million budget; it also picked up an Academy Award, winning for Best Visual Effects. The film is actually back in theaters this weekend, as part of a 70th anniversary celebration for the franchise, so if you missed it the first time around, here’s your chance.