Godzilla Minus One has been having a time of its life since its release. The movie is not only considered a huge success, but it has also made its name in the list of one of the best movies of all time. While the story had a huge impact, the major credit for the success goes to the movie’s VFX and editing.
The film shattered numerous domestic box office records during its opening weekend and debuted at No. 3 in the United States. It also achieved the highest opening weekend for a foreign language film of the year and the highest opening for a Japanese live-action film in the country. The movie is probably the best Godzilla movie, the world has ever seen.
Godzilla Minus One has achieved all of this with a small VFX team that recently revealed how they made stunning and thrilling visuals with such a small budget in a YouTube video. The writer, director, and VFX supervisor Takashi Yamazaki explained the process and the hard work that went into making the film.
Takashi Yamazaki Explains The Process of Making Godzilla Minus One
In an official video posted on Godzilla Official by TOHO, VFX supervisor Yamazaki talked about how he created such great VFX with such a small team in just 8 months. While explaining the process he also talked about the issues they had to face.
Yamazaki stated:
“We are a small production company called Shirogumi responsible for the VFX on Godzilla Minus One. The team that worked on Godzilla was 35 members who handled 610 shots over a span of 8 months. For a film like Godzilla Minus One, it was quite a small team.”
He further explained:
“We created the VFX you see in Godzilla Minus One through both innovation and effort. Traditional and digital techniques expand the possibilities of visual expression, and in the case of Godzilla Minus One, creating a hand-crafted feel unique to the film.”
According to Yamazaki, they used both traditional and digital techniques to expand the possibilities of visual expression for the movie. Although they had a small team of only 35 members, they managed to achieve great success despite having a tight overall budget for the movie Godzilla Minus One.
The Overall Budget of Godzilla Minus One
Godzilla Minus One has an estimated $15 million budget, according to Variety, even though Toho hasn’t formally revealed how much it costs to film. According to Forbes, Godzilla Minus One had sold $42 million worth of tickets domestically by the end of December 2023, and before the New Year’s Eve weekend, it had earned an additional $35 million worldwide.
Currently, it has surpassed Shin Godzilla to become the most profitable Japanese Godzilla picture and is the seventh-best-grossing Japanese movie of 2023. Additionally, the film is the first Godzilla movie to be nominated for an Academy Award, having received one for Best Visual Effects at the 96th Academy Awards.
Numerous other honors have been bestowed upon it as well, including a lead 12 nominations for the 47th Japan Academy Film Prize. Furthermore, on January 12, 2024, in Japan and January 26, in the US, Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color, a monochrome version, was also released.
