Here at io9, we love Godzilla Minus One. We also love very cool art. And we especially love very cool Godzilla Minus One art. So it’s a good job Toho is getting ready to release some of the film’s most glorious official posters for us to plaster our walls with—and we’ve got your first look.
io9 can exclusively reveal four new Godzilla Minus One posters coming this Thursday, June 20, to the U.S. Godzilla store—bringing familiar art with a new twist, and home access to some of the swankiest official posters dropped during the film’s titanic run at the box office.
The new drop includes four releases: the “Destruction” poster, depicting Godzilla looking over the ruins of Ginza, in a lenticular format created with the poster experts at Bottleneck Gallery; the U.S. and Japanese theatrical posters for the film’s black-and-white re-release as Minus One/Minus Color; and the “For Your Consideration” poster used as part of Minus One’s successful Oscar nomination campaign earlier this year.
All four posters will be available exclusively through the U.S. Godzilla store starting at 12 p.m. PT tomorrow, June 20—click through to take a look and get more details!
When the Monsterverse versions of Godzilla and King Kong crossed over in 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong, it was inevitable that the two beasts would link up again. Surprisingly, that ended up being the immediate next movie in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire(which doesn’t sound how it’s titled), which sets the two up as allies instead of two dudes beating the crap out of each other. And how does it stack up as the fifth entry in the series?
Rebecca Hall on Filming Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
Like Godzilla: King of the Monsters before it, New Empire has a mixed reception in the critical circles. As with earlier movies, the human cast aren’t much to write home about, and so much of this is just a lot of setup for the monster fights. But as always, the two Titans are really impressive, both visually and in terms of the sheer spectacle of. It also helps that, as director Adam Wingard’s previously talked about, much of the movie focuses on Kong and Godzilla having wordless, human-free arcs of their own for several stretches of time.
Audiences seem to be more onboard with Empire than critics. At time of writing, it’s made $80 million in the US, significantly higher than its initial $45-55 million projections. With $194 million worldwide (at time of writing), it’s helped the franchise cross $2 billion at the box office and is said to be the fifth-biggest Easter opening ever. Folks have really taken a shine to this series, and it probably doesn’t hurt that Godzilla Minus One sparked some interest in the radioactive lizard from anyone previously uninterested.
For this weekend’s Open Channel, we want to know what you thought about New Empire. How’s it stack up to the earlier movies, and what do you want out of the MonsterVerse next? Let us know in the comments below.
Will We See More of Uhura’s Relationship with Spock? | io9 Interview
Amazingly though, Godzilla himself is probably the least impressive visual effect in the entire movie. A new video released by Toho pulls back the curtain on the film’s Oscar-nominated visual effects which, yes, includes Godzilla. But also shows the incredible ways the team achieved all the water sequences, recreated old cities, and more. Plus, the video breaks down how all of this was achieved by fewer people than a Marvel movie probably has preparing its food. Check it out.
The Visual Effects of Godzilla Minus One
So, again, while Godzilla certainly looks awesome in the movie thanks to the team’s VFX, I watched this and was fascinated to see how everything else was achieved. How all of the ships were created using just one small set. How the actors themselves had to sway back and forth to simulate the waves. Just how little was shot practically of the crowd scenes compared to what we see in the movie.
Plus, the brief scenes inside the offices of director Takashi Yamazaki scooting around while everyone worked are just plain delightful. Even if those were captured after the fact, which they almost certainly were, the way it conveys the size of the team and streamlining of the process is a nice little window into the filmmaking process.
Godzilla Minus One, io9’s choice for best genre film of 2023, is still playing in some theaters. Fingers crossed we can get our hands on a physical copy sooner rather than later.
Since airing, this episode has developed a reputation online as the moment the show officially began its downward slide. This is in large part thanks to the third-act twist, which reveals that horse-riding jockeys are actually brain-eating elves. That sounds dumb, but it’s actually worse in the episode.
This half-hour of The Simpsons also includes a lot of weird, out-of-place meta jokes commenting on how “Saddlesore Galactica” is repeating old storylines and jokes, which isn’t very funny and also just highlights how bad the episode actually is. While I think the show has had great episodes and even seasons after this point—even if many people online think otherwise—I can’t deny that “Saddlesore Galactica” is likely the end of the show’s golden era.
10 Creatures We Wanna Ride In Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
Before we move forward, some quick background on this ongoing feud. The Reedy Creek Improvement District was established in Southern Florida in 1967. It was created because Walt Disney wanted more control of the area surrounding his then-soon-to-be-opened Walt Disney World resort. He had plans for a private city, and even after that never happened, the special district remained. Since then, Disney World hasn’t had to follow certain Florida laws, essentially giving the company its own mini-government. But after a 2022 spat between DeSantis and Disney over the company’s (tepid) support for LGBTQ rights, DeSantis used Florida House Bill 9B to restructure the district.
As part of this, he appointed a new board of directors to oversee the district. But upon showing up for its first meeting, the new board learned that, in its final hours, Disney’s outgoing board had legally given nearly all control over the district back to Disney. This greatly upset DeSantis who called the deal a “collusive and self-dealing” arrangement that “undercut Florida’s legislative process.” He also asked Florida’s authorities to investigate the situation. He was, in other words, big mad about fucking around and finding out with Disney’s lawyers.
DeSantis plans to escalate his war against Disney
However, DeSantis isn’t done being mad or finished with his fight against Disney. As reported by Deadline, the Florida Commander in Chief visited Hillsdale College in Michigan on Thursday and spoke about the ongoing Disney battle, claiming that in the end he and the state would win.
G/O Media may get a commission
“What Disney has tried to do is they have tried to say that they should be able to operate outside the context of our constitutional system in Florida,” DeSantis said. “Now, we took this action prior to the election. We won overwhelmingly. They are not superior to the people of Florida. And so come hell or high water, we’re going to make sure that that policy of Florida carries the day, and so they can keep trying to do things, but ultimately, we’re going to win on every single issue involving Disney. I can tell you that.”
Deadline further reports that DeSantis seemed upset about media reports that Mickey Mouse’s company had “pulled one over on the state” which makes sense. When you get made a fool, you tend to not enjoy that experience. But DeSantis also suggested that legislation would “void anything” Disney’s board did before leaving. And also hinted at further punishments to levy against the company.
“Now that Disney has reopened this issue, we’re not just going to void the development agreement they tried to do, we’re going to look at things like taxes on hotels, we’re going to look at things like tolls on the roads, we’re going to look at things like developing some of the property that the district owns.”
Why DeSantis is fighting Disney and stripping it of its special district
Image: Giorgio Viera / Arturo Holmes / Kotaku (Getty Images)
And let’s be clear: DeSantis isn’t going after Disney because he suddenly became an anti-capitalist who wants to destroy the company and make it pay its fair share in taxes. No, instead, as he explained during his Michigan visit, all of this was because Disney dared to speak up mildly against his horrible, fascist laws and policies against LGTBQ and trans people, including pushing schools to out students to their parents. State leader didn’t like that one bit, adding that he didn’t want Florida to be “subsidizing woke activism.”
“We just had to look at this and say, ‘OK, do they have a quote, First Amendment right to be advocating for gender ideology in Kindergarten? Yeah, I guess. Is that honestly faithful to their fiduciary duty to their shareholders? I don’t think so. But that’s not really in my wheelhouse as governor, but what I can tell you as governor is that under no circumstances should the state of Florida be subsidizing woke activism by allowing them to have their own government. So we took it away,” DeSantis said at the time.
It’s clear that Disney and DeSantis aren’t done yet and while I hate rooting for a giant corporation like Disney, I don’t mind seeing an asshole like DeSantis keep losing over and over again. And really, the only winners in all of this are (as usual) lawyers who bill by the hour.
