One of the wonderful things about the Godzilla franchise is that it has taken many forms over its seven-decade run. Director Ishiro Honda’s original 1954 classic is a harrowing cinematic reckoning with the horrors of war. Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack is a full-blown monster bash. Bearing that in mind, two of the most wildly different Godzilla movies one can imagine happen to have something bizarre in common. Namely, they were both influenced by cats.
Director Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus Zero recently hit theaters and shattered box office records, serving as a follow-up to 2023’s Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One. These movies are about as serious as a heart attack and make a strong argument for this franchise as legitimate cinema. Then there’s director Adam Wingard, who directed both 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong and 2024’s Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, which are delightful, unserious blockbuster monster brawls.
Both directors have defined Godzilla's modern era, and both of them were influenced by cats along the way. As first reported by Geeks of Color in 2024, Wingard’s cat played a role in one of the most memorable scenes in Godzilla x Kong, which saw the King himself sleeping in the Colosseum. Here’s what Wingard had to say about it at the time:
“One of my biggest influences in life is my cat Mischief. Mischief has been a big influence in terms of the way I developed the mannerisms with Godzilla. And in a literal way, as you can see in the film, the shot of Godzilla in the Colosseum was a direct lift from my cat sleeping in her cat bed.”
“A couple weeks ago I had a conversation with Yamazaki, and it turns out that his cat owns a major influence on the way he developed his Godzilla as well,” Wingard added at the time. “So I don’t know what’s the deal with these cats. Maybe they have mind control over us or something.”
That brings us to now. Yamazaki has been promoting Minus Zero and recently spoke with IGN. The big difference this time around is that Godzilla is fighting King Ghidorah. It’s not a solo kaiju movie. To develop the movie’s big monster battle, Yamazaki also turned to his cats. As the director explained:
“So, I have two cats. And for the most part, they're very nice and playful with each other, but on a rare occasion I think there's like — I don't know if they're crossing the line between play and actual fighting. I see two creatures fighting each other, and I tend to think about my cats when that happens.”
There we have it. Two very different movies, cats playing a part in both. Godzilla Minus Zero is a serious movie inspired by Aliens and Terminator 2. On the flip side, Godzilla x Kong was inspired in part by ‘80s buddy-cop movies. The common ground, of all things, is cats. And yes, Godzilla himself, but mostly cats.
Looking ahead, the next entry in the MonsterVerse, Godzilla x Kong: Supernova, is due to hit theaters in March of 2027. Wingard isn’t going to be in the director’s chair, though, with Grand Sputore (I Am Mother) taking over. Meanwhile, it hasn’t been confirmed as to whether or not Yamazaki is going to return to make a third movie in his iteration of the franchise. Without getting into spoilers, Minus Zero did leave the door open for a potential follow-up. We’ll see what shakes out.
Godzilla Minus Zero is in theaters now.
