After Godzilla: Minus One took the world by storm in 2023, everyone naturally had the same question on their lips: “What will Takashi Yamazaki do next?” The visual effects artist-turned-director proved he could do a lot with a little — Minus One effectively revived the monster property with something between $10 and $15 million. The question of what he might do with a budget more befitting a Hollywood blockbuster was too tempting, and fortunately, we won’t have to wait too long to see it. Not only will Takashi deliver a sequel to Minus One, due later in 2026, but he’s also hard at work on his English-language debut, Grandgear.
Takashi’s upcoming film has been in the works since 2024. Sony Pictures won the rights to distribute the film after a fierce bidding battle, with J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot joining the production shortly after. Back then, the plot for Grandgear was a closely-guarded secret — but at this year’s Cinemacon, Sony finally unveiled the plot of the highly-anticipated film, and it sounds a lot like something out of Pacific Rim or Neon Genesis Evangelion.
At the Las Vegas convention, Sony announced that Grandgear is set for a February 2028 release, and that Yamazaki will write and direct. Yes, Takashi’s next film after Godzilla Minus Zero will follow a similar kaiju-centric brief, this time with giant mechs. The brief tease Sony offered at Cinemacon featured two mechs fighting in a sequence that, per The Playlist, looked a lot “slicker than, say, the Pacific Rim universe.”
There’s no word on whether these mecha will solely be fighting each other or be forced to team up against monsters their size (some reports out of Cinemacon suggest that the mechs will be fighting giant kaiju), but with Takashi at the helm, there’s bound to be some kind of twist at play. Either way, it will be great to see the mecha genre done justice in live-action, after Pacific Rim’s disappointing sequels saw popular interest in giant robots start to wane.
Either way, it’ll be fascinating to see how the filmmaker handles such a staple of Japanese pop culture, especially with other giant robot movies coming down the pipeline. Netflix is teaming up with Legendary to make Gundam, a live-action rock-em-sock-em epic starring Sydney Sweeney. Of course, there’s more than enough of this trope to go around — especially if it’s coming from the director of the decade’s best Godzilla movie. It’s still early days for Grandgear, but the fact that the film is on the way is cause enough to celebrate.
