Hollywood makes a big fuss when a beloved actor finally gets long-overdue recognition from the Oscars after years of waiting, but perhaps the biggest star in cinema history just scored his first nomination after 70 years.
Folks, let’s give it up to Godzilla. On Tuesday morning, the King of the Monsters’s most recent film, Godzilla Minus One, was nominated for Best Visual Effects at the 96th Academy Awards.
The nomination is Godzilla’s first after a lengthy, decade-spanning career. Godzilla, who became a star once nuclear tests mutated him into a skyscraper-size monster who could destroy buildings and tanks with his atomic breath, made his film debut in 1954’s Godzilla. Since then, he’s appeared in a total of 37 feature films — 33 of which, including Minus One, were made by the Japanese studio Toho, while the other four are American productions. A 38th film, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, will open in the U.S. in March 2024.
Despite this illustrious career, Godzilla had never scored an Oscar nomination before Minus One. His Stateside rival, King Kong, for comparison, has been nominated several times, having received nods for the 1976 movie and even three wins for Peter Jackson’s 2005 take on the Eighth Wonder of the World.
Notably, Minus One — which features Godzilla attacking a defeated, demilitarized Japan in the immediate wake of World War II — had a fraction of the budget of most American blockbusters, including U.S. Godzilla films like 2021’s Godzilla vs Kong,which had a budget of $155 million and received zero noms. Reports of Minus One’s exact budget vary, but it’s somewhere between $10 and $15 million — 10 percent of GvK’s.
In an interview with Vulture, the film’s director and writer, Takashi Yamazaki, who also oversaw Minus One’s special effects, noted this stark difference. “Man, you guys have a lot of VFX and you guys have the budget for it,” he said when comparing the American Godzilla films to the Japanese ones.
Minus One has enjoyed surprising critical and commercial success in the United States, grossing more than $100 million, and becoming the fifth-highest-grossing foreign language film in U.S. box-office history.
When reached for comment about this honor, Godzilla said, “SKREEEOOONK!”
Related
- The 2024 Oscar Nominations
- Godzilla As an ‘Undiscerning God’
- Every Godzilla Movie of the Past 40 Years, Ranked
James Grebey , 2024-01-23 17:22:29
Author : New-York
Publish date : 2024-01-23 17:22:29
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