Godzilla Minus One Is Getting Black-and-White Theatrical Version

Edit: It looks like the black and white version of Godzilla Minus One will be receiving a one week U.S. release after all, starting Jan. 26, 2024. Tickets are on sale now.

Fresh off a November-December run that saw it become the highest-grossing live action Japanese film ever in North America, it seems Godzilla Minus One isn’t done yet with its path of destruction. The film, hailed by critics worldwide as one of the best kaiju flicks ever, will reappear in Japanese theaters in early January with a fresh new black-and-white version, with Godzilla parent company Toho today putting out new posters and a teaser trailer for the Jan. 12, 2024 release. Will this version find a home in the U.S. as well? We’ll have to hope that the reception in Japan is strong, so perhaps we’ll have a chance to see this glorious looking new version for ourselves as well, although at the very least we’d expect this version to eventually be included in a home video release.

Said Director Takashi Yamazaki of the black-and-white project:

“We are now able to announce Godzilla-1.0/C, which we have been working on for a long time. Rather than just making it monochrome, it is a cut by cut, I had them make adjustments while making full use of various mattes, as if they were creating a new movie. What I was aiming for was a style that looked like it was taken by masters of monochrome photography. We were able to unearth the texture of the skin and the details of the scenery that were hidden in the photographed data. Then, a frightening Godzilla, just like the one in the documentary, appeared. By eliminating color, a new sense of reality emerges. Please live and resist further fear at the theater.”

That full title is technically Godzilla-1.0/C, which stands for Godzilla Minus One Minus Color. It’s a fitting tribute to the King of the Monsters, capping off Godzilla’s rather incredible year, between Godzilla Minus One and Apple TV+’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, not to mention the incoming Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. In North America, Minus One became the biggest debut for a foreign film in 2023, grossing more than $34 million to date in the U.S. and Canada despite the fact that it was subtitled. Overall, it stands as the sixth-highest-grossing Japanese film of all time in the U.S., though it’s the highest ever for a live action feature, the others on that list primarily being anime.

Check out the spooky teaser below for the upcoming black-and-white release, as well as the scintillating new poster.