"Godzilla -0.0" has taken more than 2.5 billion yen at the box office since opening on Nov. 3, and became the first Japanese film to top the opening-weekend rankings in Japan and the US at the same time, director Yamazaki Takashi (62) said the monster is "a global star."
Yamazaki wrote the script and handled the visual effects, as he did on the previous film, "Godzilla -1.0" (2023), which earned 7.65 billion yen. He spoke to the Chunichi Shimbun about the creature's hold on audiences at home and abroad.
The new film opened in 448 theaters, including 65 IMAX screens. Yamazaki said he had been nervous before the release, telling the paper he feared the result would not match his own judgment of the work.
The strong start puts it on course to pass the 8.25 billion yen of "Shin Godzilla" (2016), the highest earner in the series, with more than 10 billion yen now in view.
A boyhood wish in Matsumoto
The film brings back King Ghidorah, the three-headed monster Yamazaki says he loves. King Ghidorah first appeared in the series in "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster," released in 1964.
Yamazaki was born in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, the same year. When he was in the third or fourth grade, the film had a revival screening in the city.
The poster read "King Ghidorah attacks Matsumoto!" and the story had the monster raiding the city. The boy begged his parents to take him, promising he would never ask them to take him to a movie again.
He got his wish. He had assumed King Ghidorah would close in on Matsumoto Castle and destroy it — the standard bargain of a monster movie.
“I will give it everything I have!”Yamazaki Takashi, director
The interview fell on a day when he was giving more than 30 interviews, from morning to night. Told he could pace himself, he answered earnestly.
Lead actor Kamiki Ryunosuke (33) teases him affectionately as "the world's Takashi," but the director's modesty has not changed.
His credits include "Always: Sunset on Third Street" (2005) and "The Eternal Zero" (2013). "Godzilla -1.0" won the Academy Award for visual effects, the first for an Asian film.