Gamera: Rebirth: Everything We Know So Far About The New Kaiju Movie Coming To Netflix

Kaiju never go out of style. From Godzilla to King Kong to Clifford the Big Red Dog, giant monster media is always close at hand to remind us all how we're only one bad experiment away from losing our top spot on the food chain. With that charming notion in mind, the latest entry into the creature catalog will be an adaptation of a familiar, scaly face. Netflix Japan officially announced via Twitter that its studio will helm "Gamera: Rebirth," an animated film starring the world's biggest turtle. The statement came packaged with what we can only describe as the shortest teaser trailer ever created.

There's not much to tell just yet, but we love talking almost as much as we love cryptids, and there's plenty to speculate about. Here's everything we know about Gamera's cinematic return, as well as a little background on the OG hero in a half shell ... and now we're imagining a crossover with "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." Well, there goes the rest of the morning. 

"Gamera: Rebirth" does not currently come packaged with an official release date. The best we're probably going to get for a while is that it's "coming soon," a phrase which could mean anything between tomorrow and 2029. We do, however, know where to watch "Gamera: Rebirth." Here's a hint: Netflix Japan isn't putting it's project on HBO Max. Now, despite being property of Netflix, a global streaming company, it's entirely possible for "Gamera: Rebirth" to drop in different countries at different times, especially if the studio intends to create a dubbed version for English speaking audiences. 

Time for some speculation. Based on how scant the teaser trailer was, it's likely that Gamera's latest adventure is either near the beginning of production or else at the front end of the middle. That made sense, right? In this situation, at least, don't expect "coming soon" to mean anything closer than the end of 2023. Then again, who knows? We've been wrong before. 

Shusuke Kaneko will direct "Gamera: Rebirth" for Netflix Japan. Here's what he had to say in the official announcement. 

"When I came up with my own idea for Reiwa Gamera and made a proposal, Kadokawa has already started a new project, and its content that makes me think that's what happened, so I can expect this too. With that in mind, I would like to support the team from the position of a baseball commentator who has experience as a manager of the Gamera team until they win the championship and pitch again." 

Hey, that statement featured a lot of words that might be new to you. For clarity, Kadokawa is a media conglomeration, and Reiwa is the name Japan has assigned to the current era of Japan's official calendar.

No plot details are currently available for "Gamera: Rebirth," so everything we discuss here will be whole-cloth speculation. It'll be solid speculation, considering how every single kaiju movie is about one of two things ("monsters are bad" or "humans are bad and monsters are good, actually"), but speculation nonetheless. In most previous retellings, Gamera is something of a superhero. Granted, the creature started out as a rampaging, fire-breathing, prehistoric turtle monster, but enough people changed the story so that Gamera is now canonically a benevolent, fire-breathing, prehistoric turtle monster. These fragments of Gamera's story are known in the Showa era and Heisei era, respectively. As the Heisei era is more recent, it's probable that Gamera will continue to be a heroic force in defense of humanity.

As for Gamera's opposition, well, there are too many to pick from to accurately narrow it down here. There's Gyaos and Zigra and Viras and Jiger and Barugon and Guiron and Legion and Iris and ... I'll tell you what, instead of explaining all of these monsters, just imagine literally any Neopet, but supertall and with more teeth. There are a bunch of options, is what we're saying, and it really boils down to which baddies the creative team likes the most.

Other than Kaneko, there's nothing public about the cast and crew, at least, not yet. Even when the casting information breaks, the news will likely be minimal, as the actors involved will probably be attached to voice the human characters and ... let's be honest. No one is watching a Kaiju movie for the human characters.