Godzilla Minus One roars past $100 million global box office milestone ahead of release of black-and-white version of critically acclaimed film

The critically acclaimed monster movie from Toho Studios , which released the original 1954 Godzilla film, was directed by Takashi Yamazaki Godzilla Minus One was released in Japan by Toho on November 3 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the franchiseIt debuted at number one at the Japanese box office and has become the highest-grossing Japanese live-action film in North American history 

Godzilla Minus One has stomped past the $100 million milestone at the global box office ahead of a new limited black-and-white release.

The critically acclaimed monster movie from Toho Studios, which released the original 1954 Godzilla film, was directed by Takashi Yamazaki, 59, who also wrote the screenplay and collaborated on the visual effects with Kiyoka Shibuya.

Godzilla Minus One was released in Japan by Toho on November 3 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the franchise and its international subsidiary later released the film on December 1 in North America.

It debuted at number one at the Japanese box office and has become the highest-grossing Japanese live-action film in North American history, according to Collider.

Toho also just announced that a black-and-white version titled Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color will have a one-week run starting on January 26 in North American theaters.

Godzilla Minus One has stomped past the $100 million milestone at the global box office ahead of a new limited black-and-white release

Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color was released on January 12 in Japan.

The black-and-white version is an attempt to provide more of a documentary-style to the horror movie while also paying homage to the 1954 film.

Godzilla Minus One has received widespread acclaim and is considered one of the best films of 2023 and the best Godzilla movie ever made.

It has a score of 98 among critics on Rotten Tomatoes and an identical 98 score from audiences.

The film stars Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Sakura Ando and Kuranosuke Sasaki and a Godzilla who terrorizes postwar Japan.

Forbes dubbed the movie ‘One Of 2023’s Greatest Films’, while The New York Times noted ‘Japan’s famous monster franchise returns with an appetite for destruction but also a notably sober outlook.’

Verge said ‘as much of a throwback as the movie is, it’s one worthy of standing alongside the original as a seminal piece of the Toho canon’, while Den Of Geek shared: ‘Godzilla Minus One remains convinced that humans working together are even stronger and gives us compelling, fully drawn human characters to make us believe it.’

In the 1954 original classic, directed by Ishiro Honda, a man sweated inside a rubber suit and trampled over cityscape miniatures to tell the story of a prehistoric creature mistakenly brought to life by radiation from nuclear testing in the Pacific.

Godzilla is shown attacking Japan in the original 1954 film from Toho Studios

Godzilla Minus One stars Minami Hamabe and Ryunosuke Kamiki and director Takashi Yamazaki are shown in October in Tokyo

Hamabe is shown in a scene from Godzilla Minus One, which is set in Japan around World War II

Godzilla attacked a train and chomped on it in a scene from Godzilla Minus One

A train also was attacked by Godzilla in the 1954 film

Godzilla Minus One has a score of 98 among critics on Rotten Tomatoes and an identical 98 score from audiences

The monster in Godzilla Minus One is all computer graphics and the film was produced with a budget of about $10 million.

Yamazaki, who has worked with famed auteur Juzo Itami, has won Japan’s equivalent of an Oscar for ‘Always – Sunset on Third Street,’ a heartwarming family drama set in the 1950s, and ‘The Eternal Zero,’ about Japanese fighter pilots.

What got him interested in filmmaking as a child was Steven Spielberg’s ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind.’ He was so enthralled with the film he couldn´t stop talking about it, he said in November, following his mother around for hours, even as she was cooking dinner.

Star Wars, the franchise created by George Lucas and another science-fiction favorite, evokes many Asian themes that make him the perfect director for a sequel, Yamazaki said.

‘I am confident I can create a very special and unique Star Wars,’ he said.