The Godzilla franchise is going strong in 2026, with Apple TV’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (part of Legendary Entertainment’s MonsterVerse) and the pending release of Toho’s Godzilla Minus Zero, the hotly anticipated sequel to 2023’s critically acclaimed, Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One. Toho unveiled the first short teaser at Cinemacon, and it has now been released online for our viewing pleasure.
(Spoilers for Godzilla Minus One below.)
Director Takashi Yamazaki wanted to return to Godzilla’s filmic roots with Minus One, setting the events in postwar Japan and tapping into the monster’s symbolic representation of the Japanese perspective on the 1940s nuclear holocaust—while also incorporating all-too-human themes of guilt and redemption. The film followed Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a kamikaze pilot who was trying to flee from duty when Godzilla attacked the small garrison where he was hiding. Koichi’s courage failed him, and he ended up one of only two survivors, wracked with guilt for failing to act.
Koichi sought atonement by taking on a woman, Noriko Oishi (Minami Hamabe), and a young orphaned girl, Akiko (Sae Nagatani), and working aboard a minesweeper to support his new “found family.” Then a mutated Godzilla re-emerged, and Koichi redeemed himself by joining the collective fight to defeat the rampaging kaiju, after which he reunited with an injured Noriko, who had a mysterious black bruise spreading over her neck. The final scene showed a chunk of Godzillian flesh beginning to regenerate as it sank into the sea.