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Godzilla Minus One Gets Black-and-White Edition on January 12
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
TOHO revealed on Wednesday that Godzilla Minus One, Takashi Yamazaki's new film in TOHO's Godzilla franchise, will have a new black-and-white version titled Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color (Godzilla -1.0/C) that will open in Japan on January 12. TOHO is streaming a teaser trailer for the news version.
The film sold 648,600 tickets for 1,041,193,460 yen (about US$6.93 million) in its first three days in the Japanese box office. The film sold 14.7% more tickets and earned 22.8% more in its first three days than the last live-action Japanese Godzilla film, Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi's Shin Godzilla, did in its first three days in 2016. The film has sold a total of 2.87 million tickets for a cumulative total of 4,425,512,980 yen (about US$31.04 million).
Ryunosuke Kamiki plays protagonist Kōichi Shikishima, and Minami Hamabe plays heroine Noriko Ōishi. (The two also lead the cast of NHK's ongoing weekday morning series Ranman.) Other cast members include Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Sakura Andō, and Kuranosuke Sasaki.
The film opened in U.S. theaters on December 1, and earned US$11,419,975 in its first three days to rank #3 in the U.S. box office in its opening weekend. The film has the highest opening weekend for a foreign film in the United States this year, surpassing the US$10.1 million opening weekend earnings of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Swordsmith Village Arc in March. The film has become the highest-earning live-action Japanese film in North America. The Critics Choice Award has nominated the film for Best Foreign Language Film.
Yamazaki is the director and writer, and is also credited for visual effects. Yamazaki has primarily directed live-action films, including the Always: Sunset on Third Street, Returner, and Parasyte films, but has also directed CG films such as Stand By Me Doraemon.
Sources: Godzilla Minus One official website, TOHO official YouTube channel
