In a surprise movie, Netflix has announced a new project that will be available on the streaming platform at a later date, Gamera: Rebirth, the first film to star the classic Japanese monster since 2006. The existence of the new project, unconfirmed to be a series, special, or movie, took fans by surprise when it was suddenly made, but the fresh poster art and even a brief teaser video from Netflix already has people excited. Of note with the announcement is that filmmaker Shusuke Kaneko, who previously directed the 1990s trilogy of Gamera movies, has put his full support behind the project (and previously pitched an idea for a reboot too!).
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“When I came up with the idea for Reiwa Gamera and made a proposal, KADOKAWA was already working on a new project,” he said (translated form Japanese). “From my standpoint, I’m like a baseball commentator with experience as a Gamera team manager, I would like to support the team until it wins the championship.” Shusuke Kaneko’s three films were incredibly well received at the time of their release and have become favorites of Gamera fans in the years since. It’s unclear if the director will be involved in the new project in anyway, but showing his support for the return of Gamera is a big deal for franchise fans.
First introduced to audiences in 1965 with Gamera, the Giant Monster, as a fire-breathing, rocket leg having, giant turlte that is both the guardian of the universe and a friend to all children. The character became a staple of the Japanese kaiju subgenre of movies, and was largely the only giant monster that came even close to competing with Toho’s Godzilla. Gamera would go on to appear in seven sequels throughout the 1960s and 1970s, introducing his own cast of kaiju villains and alien races just like his atomic counterpart. For many audiences in America, their only exposure to Gamera was when the film was used across multiple episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in the 1990s.
Shusuke Kaneko’s reboot of Gamera with the 1995 movie Gamera: Guardian of the Universe, followed by two sequels, would put the character on the map in a bigger way than many of the 1970s sequels. The success of these movies even paved the way for Toho to hire him to make his own Godzilla film (2001’s Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, it’s own radical reinvention of that kaiju franchise). Gamera The Brave would be the final entry in the Gamera franchise back in 2006, and he’s been dormant ever since, until now.
