In terms of dream jobs, it’s hard to beat “Chief Godzilla officer.” Keiji Ota has held that title since 2017, and while his recent interview with the Japanese site NewsPicks does put business first and cool Godzilla facts second, the plans the Toho executive lays out for the next 50 (or even 100!) years of the franchise — already one of the longest-running in history — are exciting enough that we can put all that aside. (Ota has been photographed many times next to Godzilla figures, so maybe he is a monster kid at heart.)
First of all, Ota says that Toho will be taking a cue from Legendary’s Monsterverse and expanding the cinematic universe of its Godzilla films. It’s not clear what form this new universe will take just yet, but it does have a name: “Godzilla World.” Later in the interview, Ota says that the audience for Godzilla is aging — at least domestically — so we can expect at least a few of these efforts to be new media: “To attract new fans in their teens and twenties, I want to try my hand at video content other than movies ... such as TV streaming series and games,” Ota says. (Interviews were run through Google Translate.)
