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Takashi Yamazaki is setting sail in due time with his latest appeal to Hollywood in Grandgear since the project was announced in 2024. As of Monday, the film has reportedly landed its first two names to cast with Sam Nivola and Nico Parker, with Paul Giamatti according to the trades.
Plot details are unknown while reports this year from the film’s updates given to attendants at CinemaCon hint at what is expected to be a mecha (giant robot) sci-fi epic. Yamazaki is directing from an original screenplay with Glen Zipper and Bad Robot’s J.J. Abrams producing.
Cameras are expected to roll next year ahead of a February 2028 release.
Grandgear sets a new milestone goal for Yamazaki who cut his teeth in sci-fi debuting with Juvenile (2000), and continuing with Returner (2002). He’s also made several manga adaptations over the years including the back-to-back Parasyte films starring Shota Sometani, and Masaki Suda starrer, 2019’s The Great War Of Archimedes.
Yamazaki made history at the 96th Academy Awards winning the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in Godzilla: Minus One, beating The Creator, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, and Napoleon. The moment also marked the first Oscar win for Toho’s epic kaiju franchise, as well as for Yamazaki becoming the first Japanese director/individual ever to win an Oscar next to Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey).
GKids and Toho are following suit in November with Yamazaki’s hotly anticipated sequel, Godzilla: Minus Zero, which had its World Premiere at the 64th New York Film Festival last month. The film opens on November 3 in Japan, before hitting US screens on November 6.
Read more from Deadline’s Justin Kroll.