Fifty years after he first lumbered from the sea to breathe fire, trample cities and thrill generations of filmgoers, Japan’s most famous movie monster, Godzilla, was honored Monday with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The gargantuan reptile is the latest in a pantheon of famous critters, including Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny and Woody Woodpecker, to have his name enshrined on Hollywood Boulevard along with 2,200 flesh-and-blood stars, like Cary Grant and John Wayne.
Accepting the honor on behalf of the self-proclaimed “King of the Monsters” was the 5-foot-4-inch-tall Japanese actor who plays Godzilla on screen, Tsutomo Kitagawa. The actor donned the fearsome rubber suit he wears in his latest picture, “Godzilla Final Wars,” which opens Dec. 4 in Japan.
The film is the 28th Godzilla adventure produced by Japanese studio Toho Co. Ltd. since the giant, prehistoric lizard, awakened by atomic bomb tests, first roared out of the Pacific to threaten civilization in the original 1954 movie.
A metaphor for the perils of the nuclear age, the film was made nine years after the end of World War Two, when the firebombing of Tokyo and atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were still fresh in Japan’s national consciousness.
Soon after it was released in Japan, Hollywood producers bought U.S. rights to the film and instead of dubbing it into English, they recut the original with new scenes starring Raymond Burr as an American reporter covering the monster’s rampage through Tokyo.
Although Godzilla was a deadly and destructive force in his big-screen debut, the fire-breathing beast returned in subsequent films to save mankind from other monsters.
Several of his former outsized foes, including the giant moth-like creature Mothra, make comeback appearances in “Final Wars,” which Toho is touting as its last Godzilla tale — at least for now.
“So long as Godzilla can fascinate people, I believe he will be resurrected by new generations of filmmakers in the future,” producer Shogo Tomiyama said.
Godzilla’s star was unveiled outside Hollywood’s landmark Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, where his latest film was set for its world premiere.
A throng of onlookers shouted “We love you, Godzilla!” and “Viva Godzilla!” as the monster posed for pictures, spewed bursts of carbon-dioxide gas at photographers from his jaws and danced a few steps with Hollywood’s honorary mayor, Johnny Grant.
“I do hereby proclaim this Godzilla Day in Hollywood,” Grant told the crowd. “He’s loose, he’s wild, and I’m getting the hell out of here.”
Although the camera is said to add 10 pounds to most actors, Godzilla is considerably larger-than-life on the big screen than he appeared “in person” Thursday. He towers more than 30 feet tall and weighs 55,000 tons in his latest film, producers said.
A number of Hollywood studios are in talks to secure North American distribution rights for the latest film, said Shozo Watanabe, general manager of Toho’s Los Angeles office.