Some monsters don’t need a long runway to get people locked in. The second a new Toho Godzilla movie starts making noise, it immediately becomes an event, especially after what Godzilla Minus One pulled off around the world. That film didn’t just remind people how devastating the King of the Monsters can be.

It turned a Japanese-language franchise entry into a genuine global phenomenon, then went and made Oscar history on top of that. So the pressure on the follow-up was always going to be massive. At CinemaCon, Godzilla Minus Zero finally showed its hand a little, and it sounds like Toho is not thinking small.