So You Want to Make a Godzilla Cinematic Universe, Again

Last week, Nikkei Style interviewed Toho’s Chief Godzilla Officer, Keiji Ota, about the future of the franchise. Ota, who surely has the coolest job title in the world, revealed a few of the company’s plans; by the far the biggest was a new cinematic universe to begin after 2021. Godzilla will be at its center, of course, but spinoff movies for other monsters are on the table as well.

Toho has only produced a handful of non-Godzilla kaiju movies since the Heisei era began – Yamato Takeru (1994), the Rebirth of Mothra trilogy (1996-98), the Attack on Titan two-parter (2015) – and none of them went over particularly well. After Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989) underperformed, the company also became cautious about who it paired Godzilla with; the popular trio of Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Mechagodzilla returned over and over. Their fixation on “mon-stars” has survived the long post-Final Wars hiatus. Godzilla: Planet Eater, the conclusion of the Godzilla anime trilogy, seems like it’ll feature all three. Ota even cited Mothra as a monster an entire year of merchandise and a film could be centered around.

 

Hopefully, Toho will realize that story can matter just as much as name recognition. Marvel, the example they’re explicitly looking towards, has turned C- and D-list heroes into household names. Audience fatigue is also worth considering, especially since Mothra and Ghidorah will show up in Legendary’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

To try and show how Toho could broaden its scope a little, I’ve come up with six scenarios starring some of the Godzilla series’ less famous denizens. Some are less serious than others; most lack the epic scope associated with modern kaiju movies. Here I think Fox’s X-Men series has the right idea (not something I say often): lower budgets permit experimentation.

Regarding the setting: to distinguish it from the Legendary series, not to mention the past few decades of films, I think the best approach is to start this universe in medias res. An island of kaiju, futuristic weapons, alien invasions, psychic powers – they’d all be established from the start. Toho and Legendary are in the middle of reintroducing these concepts already. By 2021, it’ll be time to go nuts.

• Godzilla, Mothra, and Rodan travel to Mars for what turns out to be a lengthy mission. In their absence, the kaiju on Monster Island settle scores and terrorize the humans living there. Godzilla’s son Minya and his sidekick Anguirus must step out of the Monster King’s shadow to restore order and maintain the truce between kaiju and humanity.
• Titanosaurus, who works in the maritime shipping industry, is the only pacifist kaiju. His unique place in the world is threatened when an even swifter aquatic kaiju starts stealing his cargo. Along with his handlers, the Mafunes, he attempts to stop the thief without resorting to violence.
• After Godzilla clips his wings, Gigan is imprisoned by the JSDF and reveals his tragic history. Once the noble leader of a nomadic group of space kaiju, he was captured by the Nebulans and converted into a cyborg weapon, losing more of himself literally and figuratively with each “upgrade.” Now that he’s free of their control, can he finally find perfect peace?
• The space amoeba Yog possesses and mutates the denizens of Monster Island before launching an all-out attack on the world. After years of relying on those kaiju to fight their battles, humanity must come together to find a solution to this seemingly unstoppable threat.
• Bagan and his human priest struggle to arrange what they believe to be the ancient super-monster’s destiny: a battle to the death with Godzilla. In 1984, Bagan arrives at Mt. Mihara just in time to watch Godzilla fall in. He trashes Thailand in 1990 to try and get Godzilla’s attention, but Mothra shows up instead and leaves him in a cocoon. He thinks he’s finally going up against “Super Godzilla” in 1993, but it turns out to be a simulation created by some mischievous aliens. Finally, he invades Monster Island, only for Godzilla to be away on a mission. He fights the other kaiju instead, defeating them all in an epic battle, but expends so much energy that Godzilla – who was just clearing Sapporo of a Giant Condor infestation – easily defeats him upon his return.
• A Zone Fighter remake, but it stars Jet Jaguar and his human family.

Please hire me, Toho. I don’t know any Japanese, but I’m highly skilled at pasting blocks of text into Google Translate.