by Tohosaurus » Sun Sep 18, 2011 10:33 am
On the subject of a 60th anniversery film, you're going to have to think of the LPG film as something of the sort because Toho is unlikely to be making one. Other than some odds and ends rumors fabricated by fans, there appears to be precisely zero consideration for a ~2014 Godzilla movie at Toho. Many fans may point to the comment about Godzilla's decade long hiatus, but that single comment has been taken far too seriously. Even so, it was made so many years ago that anyone in business or product planning would know that plans change quickly, so what you heard seven years ago means nothing if nothing has been said since to credit it. All of that aside, I'd bet Toho will roll out more Godzilla movies in the future. Godzilla is a profitable franchise (and far beyond just movies) but Toho has repeatedly saturated the market with half-arsed movies and in some ways damaged Godzilla's image. The other issue is that at the present monster movies are not that big, both internationally and in Japan. Japan has had their share of monster movies this past decade but anyone who's seen some of them know they're doing the giant monster sub-genre no favors, as much as we can appreciate them ourselves. Well executed movies could lightly awaken the sub-genre again in some markets. We'll have to see how well the Legendary Godzilla, Pacific Rim, and Cloverfield 2 do at the box office to even begin to speculate on that. I blame execution pitfalls for a lot of this sub-genre's problems with box office success (or lack thereof) and just being taken seriously at all. So we'll see, but Toho and others need to focus on quality rather than quantity.
As for a Godzilla vs Gamera, I'm personally against it. I am no expert, but I don't subscribe to the notion that this crossover would just print money for Toho and Kadokawa. I was thinking the exact thing said a couple of pages back about how this would've done better in the late-60s or especially the 70s. Gamera was more of an international figure then, whereas today he simply is not. For the most part you have to be a monster movie fan to know he exists at all. I do agree that if the movie was made the best way to go about it would include something with Godzilla and Gamera fighting but then teaming up against a duo of other monsters, probably one from each franchise's history or whatever. Another issue is that Gamera was intended to ape Godzilla to some extent for financial success like many other monster movies from that era, and Toho may not want what they perceive as a ripoff to stand in the same light as Godzilla, shoulder to shoulder. Gamera's future is probably much more in limbo than Godzilla's.
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