It seemed if there was one subgenre that I loved that I could always count on something new from, at least most of the time, it was daikaijueiga. While it might grate a lot of people, I've always loved how they can break the laws of science so blatantly, commit a lot of movie no-no's without a care in the matter, and keep to the point of what's important in the subgenre. It's been established that there is a big four when people think of these films: Godzilla and Gamera being the ones everyone thinks of, Ultraman to some extent (even though he's really more of a superhero, but his villains are daikaiju), and King Kong.
And what has this decade done for them, really? Not much.
Godzilla came back in 1999, and everyone was oh so happy, until they found the reviews for all his films steadily declining, as well as some of the box office numbers. Sure, many of them were technically successful, but most of the Millennium series doesn't stack up to the earlier outings. They finished it all off with Godzilla Final Wars, which was a beautiful mess. Then Toho basically says to hell with Godzilla, and why not? They make more money licensing him out than making movies about him. They say no more Big G movies until 2013 at the earliest. I'm think we probably won't see one until the 2020's.
Then everyone says, "Well, Gamera trumped Godzilla last decade. His new movie is destined to be a success!" I haven't seen Gamera the Brave yet, and even though everyone who has seen it seems to agree that it's a great film, it tanked in the box office. And what did the studio do but abandon any hope of there being a third Gamera series. Sadly, Gamera goes back on the shelf next to Godzilla.
King Kong opened strong, but following up on a $300 million budget is tough. Sure, if you think about DVD sales and world wide box office, it was technically a success. The only draw back: 3 f**king hours long! I can sit through long movies like anyone, and this one definitely had its beautiful moments, but Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, was it really necessary to go 3 hours? And there's an extended version! Interest in King Kong seems to have died down quick. I doubt there will be any sequels, which is good in this case, but we probably won't hear another Kong roar for a good while now.
I really don't follow Ultraman, but he doesn't seem to be saving the Kaiju genre either.
Our last hope seemed pinned on Cloverfield. I saw it and thought it was fantastic, though many would disagree with me, and rightly so. The creators seemed high on the idea of doing another movie, but now they're saying they'd rather do something "in vein of Cloverfield" with the same cast. WTF?
From what I've been told, all around interest for daikaiju in Japan is at all time lows. Without interest there, and with no one here taking it seriously aside from a few choice directors, what will become of the subgenre? It happens with all of them after a while. People get tired of seeing the same stuff, then some visionary comes along after the genre has been long dead and revives it once again to watch the cycle repeat. The question now is who and when?
Should the kaiju subgenre stay dead this time? Have we tapped its resources? There seems to be little we can do without touching on the same environmental and sociopolitical issues that it's all been beaten into the ground. Maybe, hopefully, come 2013 someone can come up with something that will revive it again. It seems Godzilla's had the worst go of all of them of late. Even though I enjoyed Final Wars, it really wasn't much of an all around success. All we can do is wait.
Well, we do have an upcoming X from Outer Space sequel. If it's any good, perhaps the Gappa vs. Guilala idea they tossed around a few years back might get made.
I atually had a simalar thread a few pages back http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,118994.0.html
Like you I wanted to know why giant monster movies just arn't being made anymore. some thought the movies we were getting just wern't good enough to catch on. Some thought it was becasue as Americans, we don't view giant monster movies in the same light as ther countries. We had some interesting answers.