In a recent interview with IGN, Godzilla Minus One director Takashi Yamazaki detailed his approach to developing a sequel to the critically acclaimed film, which led him to conceive Godzilla Minus Zero.

As Yamazaki explains in the interview, he approached Minus Zero by wanting a film that works alongside Minus One, rather than outdoing it. Here’s his full explanation:

In the beginning I thought, ‘Well, how do I outdo its predecessor and how do we make a movie that’s going to win all these awards and it’s going to be bigger in scale?’ But I think it’s very dangerous to create a movie with that type of mindset because you’re going to risk diluting what makes the movie great in the first place. So those are the wrong reasons to make a movie, and it ends up becoming an antagonist in your moviemaking process.”

And the reviews suggest Yamazaki’s mindset proved successful with both critics and audiences. The film currently has a Certified Fresh 90% Critics score and a Certified Fresh 96% Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes. Elsewhere, the film has a 7.4/10 Metacritic score, an 8.0/10 on IMDb, and a 4.1/5 on Letterboxd. These high scores, though lower than those of Godzilla: Minus One, show a film many consider to stand alongside its predecessor rather than surpass it, proving Yamazaki’s approach to the sequel was successful.