While Michael Dougherty is hard at work on GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS, the GODZILLA 2014 sequel that is set for a 2019 release, and Adam Wingard prepares to bring us GODZILLA VS. KONG in 2020, Toho Animation and Polygon Pictures will also be keeping themselves busy with Godzilla projects, as it has been revealed that the upcoming Godzilla anime GODZILLA: MONSTER PLANET is the first in a trilogy of Godzilla animated films.
GODZILLA: MONSTER PLANET will be the next Godzilla movie to make it out into the world. The anime is scheduled to debut in Japan this November, and soon after will receive a worldwide release through the Netflix streaming service.
With the film's release coming up in five months, Toho and Polygon have shared a poster for MONSTER PLANET that gives a black and white look at the anime's Godzilla design… which looks surprisingly close to the GODZILLA '14 design.
GODZILLA: MONSTER PLANET has a very lengthy synopsis:
The last summer of the 20th Century. That day, the human beings learn that they are not the only ruler of the planet Earth.
The appearance of the giant living creatures “Kaiju’s” and the ultimate existence that destroys all monsters: Godzilla. Through the battle against kaiju’s that lasted for half a century, human beings have experienced continuous defeat, and finally plan to escape from the Earth. And in 2048, only those who were selected by the A.I. managed under the central government boarded the inter-sidereal emigrant spaceship “Aratrum” to head for “Tau Cetus e”, the planet beyond the distance of 11.9 light-year. However, the environmental condition differences between that of the Earth and Tau e, which they finally arrived after 20 years were far beyond the predicted numbers, and was not an environment considered to be habitable by human beings.
The young man on the emigrant ship: Haruo, who saw his parents killed by Godzilla in front of his eyes when he was 4 years old, had only one thing in his mind for 20 years: to return to the Earth and defeat Godzilla. Shut out from the possibility of emigration, as the living environment in the ship deteriorates, the group of “Earth Returnists” led by Haruo became the majority, and determines to head back to Earth through a dangerous long-distance hyperspace navigation. However, the Earth they have returned has already passed the time of 20,000 years, and has become an unknown world with the ecosystem reigned by Godzilla.
At the end, will human beings win back the Earth? And what will Haruo see beyond his fate?
I'm still stunned that we're going to be getting a Godzilla movie that's set 20,000 years in the future.
The GODZILLA: MONSTER PLANET voice cast includes Mamoru Miyano, Takahiro Sakurai, Kana Hanazawa, Tomokazu Sugita, Yuuki Kaji, and Junichi Suwabe. Kobun Shizuno and Hiroyuki Seshita directed the film, working from a screenplay by Gen Urobuchi.