Godzilla Emerges Again For New Movie From Japanese Creator
The Japanese studio Toho - the first to bring Godzilla to audiences - has announced it will be releasing a new Godzilla film in 2023.
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Godzilla is on his way back to the big screen and this time it’s from Toho — the Japanese studio that created the iconic monster. This Thursday, November 3 was Godzilla Day and Toho took the opportunity to announce that the next film in their series will release on November 3, 2023. You can see the studio’s Instagram post below.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the movie isn’t the only announcement made by Toho on Thursday. Later this month Toho will be releasing all 256 episodes of its nineties animated series Godzilla Island on its YouTube channel. While the show was “a staple of late 1990s Japanese TV,” it’s never before been released in the U.S.
No title has been released for the upcoming live-action film, but we know it will be the studio’s first live-action entry in the franchise since 2016’s Shin Godzilla. Like that entry, the new film will presumably be completely separate from Legendary’s MonsterVerse films (e.g. 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong).
Unlike Shin Godzilla, next year’s Toho film will apparently turn the clock back to the Cold War. According to a series of Japanese language sites referenced on the movie’s Wikipedia page, the movie–whose working title is Blockbuster Monster Movie–will be set in Japan’s post-war era between 1945-7.
Meanwhile the studios making media about the kaiju stateside haven’t been sitting on their hands. A new series, Godzilla and the Titans is on the way from AppleTV+, and we managed to exclusively report before anyone else that Kurt Russell was up for the lead role. He’ll also be joined by his son Wyatt Russell (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) and Anders Holm (Workaholics).
There isn’t quite as much news about the next MonsterVerse cinematic entry, Godzilla vs. Kong 2. Rebecca Hall (The Town) and Brian Tyree Henry (Atlanta) are both expected to reprise their roles from the previous film, and Dan Stevens (Legion) has been cast in an undisclosed lead role. At last report, the sequel was in the midst of filming in Australia.
Whether it’s entries coming out of Toho or Legendary, Godzilla films and TV shows aren’t bound to disappear any time soon. As THR notes, 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong managed what seemed impossible: pulling in $470 million at the box office in spite of not only a global pandemic, but being simultaneously released on HBO Max.
While next year’s entry will be Toho’s first live-action Godzilla film entry since 2016, the studio hasn’t been lazy with its kaiju IP either. Since 2017 it’s released a number of animated films such as Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters, Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle, and Godzilla: The Planet Eater.
