Though he’s already had an impressive career, claiming an Academy Award will put Takashi Yamazaki on the global map in a whole new way. What’s next for the talented director remains to be seen, but he’s teased a few possibilities.
One might lead him to a galaxy far, far away. “I watched ‘Star Wars,’ and that’s how I ended up being a filmmaker,” Yamazaki told SlashFilm in 2023. “I’m really hoping I will get a call and they will bring me on ‘Star Wars.'” Given Disney CEO Bob Iger’s recent emphasis on reducing production costs across the board, Lucasfilm might benefit from a director and sci-fi expert who knows how to keep budgets low while still delivering a fantastic product.
In his Oscars acceptance speech, Yamazaki named both “Star Wars” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” as huge inspirations for his work. Though he shares the award with his team, he enters particularly prestigious company with his victory, becoming the first director since Stanley Kubrick on “2001: A Space Odyssey” to win the Oscar for best visual effects. It’s unclear right now if a direct sequel to “Godzilla Minus One” could ever happen, but whatever Yamazaki ends up working on next may have eyes on it from around the world. At the end of his acceptance speech, he called the win “proof that everyone has a chance.”
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