New Toho Studios ‘Godzilla’ Now In Production In Japan
Toho Studiosin Japan ownsGodzilla, and licensed the character to Legendary and Warner Bros. for the 2014 film directed by Gareth Edwards. Toho ended its own giant lizard series in 2004 with the filmGodzilla: Final Wars, but don’t think that doesn’t mean that the studio is beyond feeling competitive about the character.
A new JapaneseGodzillafilm, announced last year, is in production now for release in 2016. While the studio is being quiet about that move into production, the stated intention for the film is to outdo Hollywood’s version.
In December of last year, Toho producerTaichi Uedaannounced the film’s green lightand said, “the time has come for Japan to make a film that will not lose to Hollywood.”
The question is how Toho will achieve that.Final Warsprioritized practical and “man in suit” effects to honor the long history of that approach in Godzilla films, but the movie also didn’t perform very well in Japan. This new movie will probably be more digital.
Godzilla 2016is being directed byHideaki Anno(Evangelion) andShinji Higuchi, ofAttack on Titan. (Hideki Anno is also scripting.) A statement from Toho about the directors said,
When they were announced as directors earlier this year, Higuchi said he would use hisAttack on Titanapproach forGodzilla.An AugustAP piece onGodzillafeatures some comments from Higuchi, and says,
Higuchi’s special-effects techniques were amply demonstrated in the recently released live-action version of “Attack on Titan.” For the film he combined computer graphics with a towering doll of rippling red muscles that resembles a giant biological anatomy chart, as well as using actors moving through miniatures, to depict grotesquely enlarged humans. Applying that kind of “hybrid” technology, as Higuchi calls it, to Godzilla has never been attempted in Japan. Higuchi is promising just that.
So we’ll probably still see some old-school Godzilla effects, but with more of a CG sheen over the production. ThisGodzillahas to compete in the current cinema landscape, especially if Toho really is feeling pressure from Legendary’s film. But the first of twoAttack on Titanfilms didn’t do as well as expected when released in Japan in August. It’s probably too late to really change the approach to Godzilla, but we’ll see if that film’s performance has any effect on Toho’s new movie.
Here’s an Attack on Titan trailer for those who are unfamiliar with that live-action movie.
