Jeanne TanThis sound excessive, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Keiji Ota, Toho’s Chief Godzilla Officer (that’s a thing) recently gave an interview about Goji-kon, or the Godzilla Strategy Council (that is also a thing), where he talked about the upcoming projects for the Godzilla franchise as well as future plans.
In the interview, Ota talked about the success of the Godzilla film from 2014, as well as Shin Godzilla from 2016. Moving forward from that, the Godzilla anime film was released in 2017 to great success, so there are 2 sequels slated for release in 2018.
But after those are released, there’s plenty more to come from the live-action movies. Legendary Pictures, the studio responsible for the film versions, has until 2020 before the deal with Toho expires. Godzilla: King of the Monsters is set for a 2019 release, and Godzilla vs. Kong is intended for release in 2020. Ota stated that “the baton will be passed down to the Hollywood version” to keep up the series until 2020, but it seems like there are already plans being thrown about for the future of the franchise.
[…]after 2021, we’re thinking of a potential strategy that publishes Godzilla movies uninterrupted at a rate of ever 2 years, although there is a preference for a yearly pace as well.
They also seem to be looking at the possibility of a shared universe for the movies:
The future of the series and its forwarding developments are very conscious of the method of “shared universe”. Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, etc. could all share a single world view much like a Marvel movie where Ironman and The Hulk can crossover with each other. It is said that each movie can be a possible film production where any one of them could lead a film of their own as the titular character.
Despite clearly focusing on increasing the success of the franchise, Ota turned down the possibility of a Shin Godzilla 2, saying that despite its success, they should “instead think about a world that can be used for a long time” and that he’d “rather make a World of Godzilla.”
He also talked about merchandising, and how Toho had been restricted by the brand deals currently held by Warner Bros. and Legendary, but that they’re looking to “do it all in-house”. He gave some ideas for what Toho could do, like a Godzilla theme park or producing Shinjuku Godzilla heads for display on top of hotels.
Bottom line is, with the Godzilla Council in action, the future of the Godzilla franchise is heading towards greater, more ambitious things. You can read the translated interview it’s quite the read.
It’s certainly nice that Toho’s picked up on how to make franchises blow up, but it sounds a little like overkill to us. Movies every other year? There’s such a thing as franchise fatigue, and Godzilla’s already been a constant in movies and media 1954 (it’s recognised by Guinness World Records as the longest running franchise, with 35 films to date). But we’ll just have to wait and see if by 2020, general audiences will still have the stomach for more giant monsters.
You could call Jeanne a dabbler – anything she isn’t yet a fan of, she will be eventually. The list of things she’s into is only rivalled by the things she plans on getting into. Overanalysing makes everything fun.
Natalie
Si Jia
