When your landmark film gets a surprise, history-making Oscar nomination, there’s cause for celebration. And that’s exactly what the team behind Godzilla Minus One did earlier today when the film was nominated for Best Visual Effects.
The nod, which puts it up against such Hollywood heavyweights as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (as well as The Creator and Napoleon) made it the first Japanese language film to ever earn a nomination in the category. And here’s how the team reacted the moment it happened.
Now that’s just glorious, don’t you think?
And while the nomination was clearly a surprise, there was a concerted push for it. A few weeks back the Hollywood Reporter did a feature on the film’s effects, claiming it had a shot at a nomination. The article also revealed the kind of shocking fact that only 35 people worked on the effects for the film’s 610 shots. (This raises a whole other set of more complex questions, which is a whole other story.) Either way, it’s an impressive feat on all sorts of levels for a film that cost barely a fraction of its competitors.
Written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, Godzilla Minus One has become a legitimate phenomenon at the U.S. box office, grossing over $50 million. That number also makes it the highest-grossing Japanese movie, live-action or animation, in U.S. history, as well as the fifth-highest foreign language film ever. It’s been so popular in fact that starting Friday, January 26, its distributor is releasing a special black and white version called Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color to pay homage to the original Godzilla films that inspired it.
And now, that exciting Oscar nomination can only help it.
If you haven’t seen Godzilla Minus One, we strongly urge you to go check it out. io9 didn’t name it our favorite film of 2023 for nothing.
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