We all know the feeling:
You have just seen a mega-massive Marvel or Lucasfilm FX-filled epic, you’re waiting for the all-important “post credits scene” to give you some fun or a clue as to what’s next, and past your eyes scroll the names of literally hundreds of people, all folks who worked to make the movie. Prominent among them are not one, not two, but many, many FX and CGI companies and their bosses, people, lawyers, craft service aides, “data wranglers” and a host of other job titles which you mostly cannot really fathom in detail if you’re not in the biz.
And you ask yourself when you later hear that (a) the film cost several hundred million dollars and (b) that it didn’t make back enough to pay for all that…well, was all that expensive digital person-power really necessary??
Now we know, thanks to a certain kaiju monster’s monster hit movie this past season, that no, it was not.
Minami Hamabe as Noriko Oishi in Godzilla Minus One (2023), Toho
READ: ‘Godzilla Minus One’ Continues Astounding Run At Box Office, Only Sees 41% Decline In Third Weekend
Godzilla Minus One was a HUGE box office hit in the USA, even though it might have seemed to have been fighting a truly uphill battle for American audiences in that the character has been done so many times, the film had very little publicity, it was limited to a very short window of exhibition due to contracts intended to clear the way for the NEXT Godzilla movie from another company, and mostly because it was in Japanese with subtitles, not dubbed, and thus was asking usually-resistant-to-reading-their-movies American audiences to take a pretty major leap of faith to buy a ticket.
The movie, a brilliant tour-de-force that many here at TPP and on the WDW PRO channels have judged their best picture of the entire year of 2023, succeeded with box office busting numbers of perhaps over $100 million worldwide and with a promising future life on home video and streaming to bring the Japanese producing studio Toho International a major profit beyond the already-strong domestic Japanese income—especially because unlike the bloated American giant FX-laden films from Disney’s various brands—Marvel, Lucasfilm, Pixar, etc. etc., this mighty movie cost less than $15 million to make.
Godzilla in Godzilla Minus One (2023), Toho
So how do they do that? Make a huge movie that audiences clearly have a yen for with so few yen to spend?
Well, ONE way has been revealed as the film’s creators visited Hollywood this past week because, while it was not submitted for an Oscar for Best International Film by Japan (foreign nations have to pick ONE representative for that award) it is up for visual effects honors and the director, Takashi Yamazaki has revealed that he is one of the….are you sitting down?….THIRTY FIVE people who did ALL of the film’s over 600 FX shots. The director is not only one of the nominees, if he wins he’ll be the first Director so-honored by the Academy for effects since Stanley Kubrick won for 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968!
Godzilla in Godzilla Minus One (2023), Toho
This brings up the obvious question in these times of people examining the financial follies of The Walt Disney Company and the impending proxy wars over management/mismanagement of the company’s efforts: IF a studio and director in Japan can do a huge hit with only 35 visual effects artists…couldn’t Disney get by with 50…or 100…or even 300? And when you factor in the penchant for re-shoots at the House of Mouse, the shocking financial and creative reality sets in because, of course, there’s one last fact to factor:
The effects AND the storytelling AND the audience’s embrace of Godzilla Minus One are not just cheaper…they’re BETTER, too.
