According to the cast recruitment announcement released by the Japanese film and television production website, Toho Co., Ltd. has officially started the production of the sequel to “Godzilla-1.0”, which is tentatively titled “Epic Monster Movie” (Epic Monster Movie), which will start main shooting at the end of August. The announcement of the open call for extras is the first clear confirmation that the highly anticipated sequel project has entered a substantive stage, ending months of speculation about whether the plan will move forward.
Discussions about a sequel have been around since early 2024, but the project’s progress has always been confusing. Takashi Yamazaki has said in several interviews that there were no formal consultations at the time, but he revealed that he wanted to continue the roledestinyline, delving into the world after Godzilla’s arrival. The director compared the impact of the monster to “Princess Mononoke”curseThe imagery suggests that the new work may focus on Japan’s mental trauma and cultural scars after experiencing the devastation of monsters.
In February 2025, as Takashi Yamazaki confirmed the start of script and storyboard production, he revealed the scale and cost of the new worktranscendIn the previous work, the project entered the substantive promotion stage. Although early reports did not explicitly use the term “official sequel”, combined with the August launch plan, the return of Takashi Yamazaki’s core team, and the renewed cooperation between Toho and Robot Communication, all signs point to an orthodox sequel that continues the lineage of Oscar-winning works.
Koji Ueda, president of Toho International, recently revealed that the company plans to release the film in 2026, with a specific date yet to be announced. At present, the project is still tentatively named “Epic Monster Movie”, which is obviously to prevent the plot direction and monster settings from being leaked in advance. As for whether the film will continue the original cast, Minami Hamabe and Yuki Yamada once ridiculed the possibility of a sequel in an interview and imagined the development of the story, but Toho has always strictly controlled official information. The recruitment of extras suggests that location filming including large-scale crowd scenes has entered the preparatory stage.
