Godzilla, Oscar newbie, stomps into the Academy Awards
NEW YORK — Godzilla has been to Tokyo, Hong Kong, Paris, San Francisco, Boston, Moscow, London and Hawaii. But before now, he’s never been to the Oscars.
When the Academy Awards roll around on March 10, Godzilla will stretch its scaly, reptilian legs down the Oscars red carpet for the first time in the franchise’s 70-year history. “Godzilla Minus One,” the 37th film in the film series, is nominated for best visual effects.
Though one of the most potent and long-running (or at least long-stomping) forces in movies, Godzilla has never before rubbed elbows at the Academy Awards. Its domain has been, well, the Pacific Ocean, but also the more popcorn-chomping realm of moviedom. Laying waste to metropolises has not, typically, been a gateway to Hollywood’s biggest night.
“We knew of the existence of the Oscars, of course, but there was never any kind of link between what was happening on the other side of the world and what we were doing,” says Takashi Yamazaki, the writer-director of “Godzilla Minus One.” “It’s entirely unexpected that these two worlds collide.”
But “Godzilla Minus One” has proven to be an especially border-breaking phenomenon. And its success at both the Oscars and the box office reflects a deeper shift in moviegoer — and Oscar voter — tastes toward international productions.
“Godzilla Minus One,” the first Toho Godzilla film since 2016’s “Shin Godzilla,” was an unexpected hit when it landed in North American theaters in December.
Though it was largely intended for Japanese audiences, “Godzilla Minus One” became the highest-grossing Japanese live-action film ever in the U.S. and Canada. Only two international live-action movies — “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Life Is Beautiful” — collected more than the $56.4 million grossed by “Godzilla Minus One.”
It’s all the more impressive because the film was made, somewhat miraculously, with a budget of less than $15 million. Some 610 effects shots were created by Yamazaki, who also served as effects supervisor, and his small team of artists. Lacking the budget for hydraulics, the crew shook would shake a boat set to mimic ocean bobbing or rotate a cockpit to simulate flying. Godzilla, nominated alongside films like “Guardians of the Galaxy 3” and “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One” — is this time a plucky underdog.
Set in the waning days of World War II and just before the events of the 1954 original by Ishiro Honda, “Godzilla Minus One” was also roundly acclaimed by critics who praised it for returning to the essence of Godzilla and grounding it in a Japanese perspective. Godzilla fans marveled at what Yamazaki accomplished. At the Oscar luncheon, Steven Spielberg warmly greeted Yamazaki and told him he had seen “Godzilla Minus One” three times.
“Quite frankly, I wasn’t looking at the world when we set out to make this movie,” Yamazaki said in a recent interview. “A lot of our team members said, ‘Oh, it’s Godzilla, The whole world is going to see this. You have to treat it differently.’ I told them all: ‘This is a small budget film made for a certain audience.’ They’ve proved me wrong and I’m very happy that they did.”
Across seven decades of movies, Godzilla has been deployed in a variety of ways. But “Godzilla Minus One” returns to the essential nature of Godzilla as a sober symbol of nuclear holocaust and atomic trauma.
