Tokyo may be tired of being trampled by it’s prehistoric tormentor, but Hollywood loves the big green guy. Godzilla, the star of more than two dozen movies and a cartoon series, today got his very own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The star ceremony was just one of many events held this year to celebrate Godzilla’s 50th birthday. The fire-breathing, radioactive dinosaur first exploded on the big screen in 1954 with Godzilla: King of the Monsters, which was recently restored and re-released in select theaters.
The Big G has continued for decades to thrill audiences worldwide with a satisfying blend of camp and catastrophe. The latest film in the franchise, Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S., premiered in the U.S. over the summer. Fans are now looking forward to the next and supposedly final installment (for at least a decade) in Toho’s long-running film series. In Godzilla: Final Wars, the title terrible lizard will have another go at nearly every monster he’s battled in the past. Word has it he’s even going to take on his computer-generated version.
While Godzilla has traditionally been played by a man in a big rubber suit, he got a CG makeover for Roland Emmerich’s and Dean Devlin’s ill-received 1998 U.S. remake. Though that effort flopped, Toho’s rubber Godzilla has continued to build a dedicated cult audience. The American Cinematheque, for one, regularly draws crowds for sell-out screenings of new and classic Godzilla films at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.
Fans are hoping Godzilla: Final Wars will get some theatrical distribution in the U.S., and perhaps all the 50th birthday attention will entice a distributor to give it at least a limited run. The film is slated to open in Japan in December.
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