Toho is planning sequels to multiple Godzilla movies. Toho is a Japanese production company that is best known for the Godzilla franchise, which follows a giant irradiated lizard who is alternately depicted as a rampaging avatar of destruction or a valiant hero who defends humanity from other monsters.

Altogether, there are 33 Japanese Godzilla movies (which feature a variety of secondary monsters, including Rodan, Mothra, and King Ghidorah) and five English-language installments, four of which are part of Legendary’s Monsterverse, which also features monsters and locations from the King Kong movies.

Per Bloomberg, after distributing 2023’s Godzilla Minus One themselves and earning $116 million worldwide against a slim reported budget of just $15 million, Toho is pushing to own more of its content. This includes the planned sequel to Godzilla Minus One, which is currently in development.

However, Toho’s international head Koji Ueda also revealed that, in addition to the upcoming Godzilla Minus One 2, Toho’s plans include a follow-up to 2016’s Shin Godzilla and an unтιтled project set in Southeast Asia. They are also continuing to work with Legendary on the Monsterverse’s Godzilla x Kong: Supernova and Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season 2.

What This Means For The Godzilla Franchise

Toho Is Breaking A Trend For The Current Era

This new update reviews that Toho is breaking a longstanding trend for the Godzilla franchise. In the initial run of movies in what is referred to as the Shōwa era (between 1954 and 1975), the movies were all loosely in continuity with one another, but this has not been the case for quite some time.

The second era, the Heisei era (1984-1995) had even тιԍнтer continuity, with the majority of the movies featuring the recurring character Miki Saegusa (Megumi Odaka). However, both the Millennium era (1999-2004) and the Reiwa era (2016–) have had most live-action installments either be reboots or directly follow the original 1954 Godzilla while ignoring any other continuities.

When it was announced that Godzilla Minus One 2 was in development, it finally broke that trend after 20 years, since the release of 2003’s Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S., which was a direct sequel to 2002’s Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla.

However, by pushing for a sequel to Shin Godzilla (which was a reboot that followed the Japanese government scrambling to handle the devastation when Godzilla arrives in Tokyo), Toho is now embracing two distinct continuities in the Reiwa era.

Our Take On The Godzilla Update

Shin Godzilla Deserves A Sequel

Ultimately, it makes sense that Godzilla Minus One would get a sequel. In addition to being a box office hit, it earned the franchise’s best ever Rotten Tomatoes score with a Certified Fresh 99% and became the first Godzilla installment to win an Oscar (Best Visual Effects, in 2024).

However, it is gratifying that Toho is embracing both live-action versions of Godzilla that came to Japan in the 2010s and beyond. Shin Godzilla, which is also Certified Fresh at 86%, is one of the most genuinely thrilling movies of the entire Godzilla franchise and deserves just as much love from the production company as Minus One.

Source: Bloomberg