Kaiju Theory: Is Mechagodzilla Strong Enough To Support A Solo Movie? 

Solo films based on established IPs, but starring a character you would not expect, are a recent phenomenon in America. It feels that way at least, but either way, they are a tough gamble. You can seldom tell what idea will take off and become an overnight success. Marvel got lucky with Blade in 1998 and the Daywalker went mainstream. 

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Fast-forward to today and Marvel can’t reboot the property to save their lives. A similar thing happened to DC and Warner Bros over a shorter period when Joker exploded into a billion-dollar hit minus a Batman to slug the clown. A sequel was nearly inevitable, although unnecessary, and the reception to Folie a Deux proves that.

Back to Marvel, or more specifically the Spider-Man characters they have little control over thanks to Sony, and it is one disaster after another. Keeping the Webhead out of Morbius, Kraven, and Madame Web did those films no favors, ultimately, notwithstanding other factors like the general mismanagement of individual characters. Madame Web, Kraven, and Rhino didn’t match their comic book counterparts much at all. 

In Japan, they seem to have an easier time rolling the dice on an idea that drastically departs from an established continuity or somehow exists adjacent to one. They have also been doing it longer. Godzilla, by itself, spawned a few spinoffs in the 1960s that stood on their own and also inspired a sequel or two. The prime examples are Frankenstein vs. Baragon and The War of the Gargantuas.

Neither showed hide nor scale of the big guy but were later tied into his complicated canon retroactively. Toho reached a point where all their giant monsters had to coexist with Godzilla to stay relevant and when his box office returns dipped, it affected everything. Out of this mire came the fun excesses of Final Wars, but unfortunately, that film lived up to its name and was final for ten years. 

Interestingly, it didn’t have to be the end as a pitch for an unconventional solo adventure reared its head for a short forgotten breath. Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla director Masaaki Tezuka sent a pitch to Toho around 2005 for some kind of follow-up to Against Mechagodzilla and its sequel Godzilla: Tokyo SOS, the only direct sequel in the Millennium timeline.

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The exact details of Tezuka’s treatment are unknown, and we may never know. He didn’t hear back from the studio, so the idea was effectively dropped, but it remains an intriguing proposal that raises a lot of questions. At the top of the list, what would a film about Mechagodzilla minus one (pun totally intended) King of the Monsters be like?

There are a few directions Toho could go: the classic Mecha made by aliens, a Mecha made by mankind using future tech, or a robot constructed using the bones of the dead 1954 Gojira. That last possibility happens to be the origin of Millennium Era’s Kiryu, which like Raymond Burr put it in 1985, was “a strangely innocent and tragic monster” with a palpable case of PTSD.

Kiryu’s skeleton gave it a deep spiritual connection with the first Godzilla, and because of this, the machine retained the memories and sensations of the creature’s pain and death. It was resultantly hard to control as its system would be overcome, spiraling it into its own rampage amid battle. Tezuka’s pitch is commonly referred to as “Type-3 Kiryu,” so it’s likely this is the direction Toho, who loves to hold onto concepts for a rainy day, might choose.

Tezuka believes the only reason they didn’t produce his idea in the first place was Godzilla’s slump in the late 2000s. Had the return on investment been more fruitful, Toho might not have let Godzilla sleep and in turn, powered up Mechagodzilla much sooner. While that wouldn’t have guaranteed 100 percent that Tezuka got to continue his story, Toho understood by then that humanizing Mechagodzilla with pathos made him more compelling.

On some level, I think they would desire to continue the plot threads of Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla and Tokyo SOS or utilize the twist within even if they come up with a new treatment. Maybe they’ll also take cues from similar movies that were successful as they always do. For instance, take The Iron Giant except for plugging in Mechagodzilla. That could be awesome.

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