Long post: How will Toho proceed?

[KingKaiju]

Sorry for the long post. Been putting a lot of thought into this, since seeing the article about this, from Screen Rant, yesterday.

According to recent articles and social media posts, we now know that Toho wants to go back to a once-a-year Godzilla film approach, similar to post-Biollante Heisei films and Millenium films. We also know that they want to do a “cinematic universe”, which they’ve done in the past, but it sounds like they want to be more in line with the MCU than the 60’s Showa films.

Rereading the Retrospective series on The Millenium Series, from Godzilla-Movies.com from 2016, along with comments made by Higuchi and others in the past, we know that Toho can be a very reactive, conservative, and controlling company. I’m not sure how much that has changed in the past few years but, for the sake of discussion, let’s assume that they’re the same way now. How does this go? According to part 1 of the retrospective articles, we know that the millennium series was planned to be a trilogy. But, because G2K seemed to only succeed due to the U.S. theatrical release, that idea was ultimately scrapped in favor of individual films, with GMMG being the only continuation in order to fill space in preparation for GFW. Looking back at the comments made by Higuchi and articles like this, I can’t help but notice a similarity between how Toho handled the millennium series, and how WB is handling their DC film universe. For example: GMK seemed to be a very MCU idea in a WB/DC company. Meaning that Kaneko wanted a film about Godzilla, to showcase Godzilla. He specifically picked out smaller, weaker, kaiju like Anguirus, Varan, and Baragon in order to highlight and further build up the character of Godzilla. Toho opted against Anguirus and Varan for Ghidorah and Mothra, because they wanted to stick to what was safe, along with what would sell the most tickets. Completely understandable, and GMK is still a good film. However, I wonder if this type of mentality would be detrimental for the future of this franchise. Do you think that we are going to see a new age of Godzilla films, with new ideas and a willingness to try new things or, like the past, are we going to see attempts to try something new, but a quick reversion to old formulas and ideas, in fear of losing money?

I don’t know if there are any actual numbers to back this, but it seems with social media, the monsterverse, and the success and accessibility of recent Godzilla films (Shin and the anime) that there are more eyeballs on Godzilla films than ever. The Heisei and Millenium series were very niche, but I am starting to see non-Godzilla fans buzz about this news. With Shin and the anime trilogy, we see that Toho is already trying new ideas, but I’m very curious to see where they go from here. I would love a return to their roots, but I also would like to see a spin on the same old ideas. Are we going to see CGI’d kaiju from here on out? Shin actually took me by surprise. In 12 years since the last Godzilla film, I was blown away at the improvements and growth in Tokusatsu, so I’m extremely excited for this. Will there be new kaiju? The last new kaiju introduced, ended up as an excuse to bring in another interpretation of Ghidorah. Prior to that, a lot of fans seemed less than impressed by the two new kaiju who kicked off the Millenium series. Will we see wide releases? In the early 2000’s, we didn’t have streaming services. Now they’re everywhere, and there are a million ways to view a film without having to wait for a year delayed DVD release.

But while it’s fun to speculate, think, dissect, analyze, and discuss, there’s only one true way to find out. We need to stick around and wait and see. So, in the meantime, let’s talk. Thoughts?

[MechaGoji Bro7503]

Yeah, I'll have to see Toho giving leeway on Godzilla's foes to believe it. I mean, freaking Mothra and King Ghidorah are already in the anime - just four months before KOTM. I know it'll probably end up in a more stylistic approach but it's still the "safe" kaiju.

I just hope that Toho thinks things out and plans out which directors and writers to reach out too. I don't want their plans to die out in a year like DC.

[Solia]

I want new monsters and no outdated sound effects. Also I want cgi.

[KingKong2005]

I want new monsters and no outdated sound effects. Also I want cgi.

I love the CG used in Shin, I would however be fine with suitmation and CG. A good mix of the two.

[Solia]

I want new monsters and no outdated sound effects. Also I want cgi.

I love the CG used in Shin, I would however be fine with suitmation and CG. A good mix of the two.

Shin Godzilla from close up looked kinda fake to me

[KingKong2005]

I want new monsters and no outdated sound effects. Also I want cgi.

I love the CG used in Shin, I would however be fine with suitmation and CG. A good mix of the two.

Shin Godzilla from close up looked kinda fake to me

The shot of him walking after the night time light show scene was f u g l y

[LSD Jellyfish]

I, and many others, have sorta repeated this ad naseum, but really comparing Godzilla to Superhero films, specifically Marvel or DC just doesn’t work. Just a few quick points:

-Toho created Godzilla. WB did not create DC. There’s a level of pride and tradition behind the Godzilla films that’s very unique. Even if specific Godzilla films don’t make a lot of money, Toho will keep making Godzilla films regardless. Of course they want to make money, but there isn’t the same amount of cynicism of trying to make gigantic profits with factory produced films. If you look at any of the designs and production work of the millinium series, it becomes clear that even the lesser films for the most part were made with a lot of love and care.

-Even though Godzilla definitely has monsters that are important, there’s a reason why it’s called the Godzilla franchise and not the Toho monsters franchise. Unlike all the super hero movies Toho doesn’t have to make multiple films leading together. And then when you actually boil that down, one film a year is significantly less than the three or so Marvel pumps out a year.

-Godzilla is very flexible as a character, you can keep him fresh and continually reinvent him: Godzilla has been a villain and a hero, a father, a reincarnation of ww2 spirits, a metamorphosing god like entity, a planet(?), a mutated dinosaur, a living nuclear reactor, etc....Even if not every film or incarnation is stellar, you can’t deny that Godzilla’s changed over the years and he’s really flexible as a character. You can, at this point do anything to him, well almost anything. I’m just saying you can’t have a Batman movie where batman is the main villain, if that makes sense.

-It’s multiple franchises: even if the Godzilla anime films aren’t the best received or watched, or if KOTM for whatever reason bombs horribly, it doesn’t matter. The franchises now play off of each other, and it’s great if one is successful, but again they kinda don’t affect each other nagetively. Shin, is a Japanese film, KOTM is a big American blockbuster. It’s not the same if DC films start bombing when they’re all supposed to build towards something.

-Toho, and Legendary have both taken their sweet time. Unlike DC, or Marvel, which have rushed out films in a lot of cases, it appears that both Legendary and Toho have put a lot of time into the next step. I’m surprised people keep bringing up that the next round of films will be rushed, when there’s literally been a five year gap between 2014 and KOTM. Toho has also had four+years to figure out what they’ll do after Shin, and I garuntee they already have films planned.


As an aside, with each passing day, the term “wide-release” is becoming increasingly irrelevant as mainstream movie theaters are dying in population and digital distribution is slowly becoming the norm,

[KingKaiju]

I'm talking specifically with this upcoming universe. I think that if the Monsterverse is successful, it would greatly help Godzilla films going forward, but even if that isn't the case, they still have niche fans like us and Japanese audiences to fall back on. However, I'm left to wonder if individual films in this upcoming series fail to perform and impress, how that will affect films going forward. The MCU and WB/DCEU are indeed completely different, but I think looking at the way that they handle their directors and writers says a lot about how a company can handle a franchise. The MCU has a plan that they want to follow, and basically allow their directors to do whatever they want, as long as they hit X amount of plot points. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn't. But, so far so so good. One thing I can say about the Godzilla films in the past, regardless of how they've performed, is that they've never tried to focus on "the big picture", meaning that they take it one film at a time, which I think is the best way to go about it. We see these companies trying to go with the "shared universe" idea, and just fall flat, because their focus is a universe and not the individual films or characters that come before. My fear with rushing isn't what's going on now, I'm worried about what happens when it comes down to crunch time. After Ghidorah, and after G2K, it felt like Toho was on a clock to push out as many Godzilla films as they can. And while not all of those films were bad or disasters, you could feel it. I know that, during those times, Toho wanted to his the NYE timeline. I'm not sure how much that still affects films today, but even for a smaller budget film, a year doesn't feel like much time from start to end.