Godzilla vs. James Bond: Which Franchise is Bigger?

Godzilla vs. James Bond: Which Franchise is Bigger?

 

There are certain icons of film that have stood the test of time, their names now iconic in pop culture. Two of them are Godzilla and James Bond. You say those names, and two very distinct personas come to mind. When you compare them, they share few similarities. One is a British secret agent who loves martinis, drives cool cars, attracts beautiful women, and takes out baddies with guns and cool gadgets. The other is a giant radioactive monster that has atomic breath, destroys cities, and fights other giant monsters. And yet, they do have commonalities.

Both characters originate in the 1950’s, very close to the same time. Bond started in Ian Fleming’s novels before making the jump to the big screen for the first time in 1962 with Dr. No, but the character was created in 1953, only one year before Godzilla made his big screen debut in 1954. Bond has returned for film after film, and Godzilla, likewise, has returned again and again. Both have bled over into other media, like video games and comics, and they both hold distinctions as being among the longest running film franchises of all-time.

So, we know which film series has been around longer, with Godzilla edging out Bond by eight years, and both are still running strong today. But historically, which one has been on top more often, and which one will continue to stand the test of time? Which one will eventually reign supreme?

We’ll begin with the 1960’s. James Bond came on the scene in Dr. No, 1962. That same year, Godzilla returned for only his third starring role, and this time he shared the spotlight with another famous kaiju: King Kong. Both King Kong vs. Godzilla and Dr. No were big hits, ensuring more films to come throughout the decade. For Bond, there was From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969). But, there was also Casino Royale in 1967, which was a parody loosely based on the first novel by Ian Fleming. It still counts because it features the character James Bond. King Kong vs. Godzilla was followed up by Mothra vs. Godzilla and Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (both in 1964), Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965), Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966), Son of Godzilla (1967), Destroy All Monsters (1968), and All Monsters Attack (1969).

So here are the results: Godzilla had more starring roles in the 1960’s than James Bond, which I bet might sound surprising. Well, most of the Showa era Godzilla films didn’t receive major distribution in North America, which meant they were largely unknown by mainstream filmgoers. Still, with eight films to his name, plus two more from the 1950’s, Godzilla was indeed King of the Monsters, and in this franchise battle, ahead of James Bond right from the start.

By the 1970’s, the Godzilla series was getting stretched pretty thin, with increasingly lower budgets and strange child-focused stories. James Bond, on the other hand, had new life thanks to the casting of Roger Moore, who took over from Sean Connery (George Lazenby took on the role only once, for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) and Moore ended up playing the character 7 times: the same number of times as Connery. The 70’s Bond films were Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Live and Let Die (1973), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979). The Showa Godzilla era continued with Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971), Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972), Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973), Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974), and concluded with Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975).

An interesting result! Even though the Godzilla series wound down and ended halfway through the decade, both franchises had the same number of films come out, so Godzilla stayed ahead of Bond. Update on the totals: Godzilla at 15, Bond at 12.

The 1980’s gave Bond a chance to catch up to Godzilla and make up for lost time. Toho didn’t bring back Godzilla for the second series (Heisei era) until almost halfway through the decade, but Bond stayed pretty consistent all the way through in terms of releases. The additions to the James Bond franchise were For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983), A View to a Kill (1985), The Living Daylights (1987), and License to Kill (1989). Plus, there was Sean Connery’s final return to the role for Never Say Never Again in 1983, which was based on the novel Thunderball, and, like Casino Royale, not produced by the same studio, but still counts. Godzilla returned in the aptly titled The Return of Godzilla in 1984, which started the new Heisei era. Godzilla vs. Biollante followed in 1989, but that was it for Godzilla in the 80’s.

There’s no doubt about it, James Bond ruled supreme over Godzilla in the 1980’s! With triple the number of starring roles, Bond upped his total to 18, narrowly surpassing Godzilla’s new total of 17. The results speak the truth: James Bond was a bigger franchise than Godzilla going into the final decade of the 20^th century. But, Godzilla was already well on his way to a big comeback.

Over at Eon Productions, the search for another new actor to play James Bond had begun, and it wouldn’t be until 1995 that Pierce Brosnan made his debut as 007 in GoldenEye. He’d play the role three more times after that, with his second outing being in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), and the third being in The World Is Not Enough (1999). Meanwhile, over in Japan, Godzilla’s Heisei era was in full swing, with a new entry every year in a row for five years. There was Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991), Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992), Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993), Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla (1994), and Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995), at which point the second series concluded. Then, over in North America, Godzilla had his first-ever Hollywood-produced film, 1998’s Godzilla from TriStar, but after its poor reception, Toho brought the real Godzilla back one year later in Godzilla 2000 (1999).  

Godzilla was back on top! Not only did he star in more than three-times as many movies as James Bond, he bumped his total number of starring roles up to 24, surpassing James Bond, who was at 21. The 90’s was another decade in which Godzilla was extremely successful.

Going into the 2000’s, it wasn’t clear what the future held for either franchise. The 1998 Godzilla was poorly received, and Toho made Godzilla 2000 just to spite TriStar, but then followed it up with more sequels and reboots, which became collectively known as the Millennium era. As for Bond, Pierce Brosnan did Die Another Day in 2002, then retired from the role, but it wasn’t long before another actor stepped in. Many fans and casual viewers were surprised to see Daniel Craig cast as 007, debuting in Casino Royale (the second time the first Ian Fleming novel was the basis of a Bond film) in 2006. He ended up winning audiences over, and Quantum of Solace came next in 2008. Instead of going back to cranking out Bond films every other year as was done in the 80’s, the studio took a slower approach. That was it for Bond in the 2000’s, and Godzilla had a similarly reduced number of productions compared to earlier decades. There was Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000), Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001), Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002), Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003), and Godzilla: Final Wars (2004), which concluded the Millennium series.

Though the numbers were lower for both, Godzilla still outdid James Bond in film outings for the first decade of the 21^st century. James Bond’s total went up to 24, and Godzilla went up to 29. Bond just couldn’t catch that big lizard!

Finally, we have the 2010’s, which was the first decade since the 80’s where Bond had the advantage over Big G going in. The spy thrillers were still in active production, but Godzilla had stalled out, both in North America and his native Japan. Daniel Craig came back as Bond in Skyfall in 2012, then again in Spectre in 2015. But then the future of Bond became very uncertain. Would Craig come back as Bond once more, or was it time to re-cast yet again? It took a while (probably longer than the studio expected or wanted) but Craig was confirmed to reprise the role for No Time To Die, only the film wouldn’t see a release date within the 2010’s, so it was just two Bond films released over the course of ten years. 

As for Godzilla, his resurgence happened in both the East and the West. Legendary Pictures and Warner Brothers gave an American Godzilla another shot, simply calling it Godzilla yet again and releasing it in 2014 to considerable success. Toho once again responded with their own reboot, but not out of spite this time, and with a fresh take, releasing Shin Godzilla in 2016, which also proved successful. Legendary’s Godzilla wasn’t just a one-and-done like Tristar’s, though. They were building a cinematic universe, the MonsterVerse! Godzilla: King of the Monsters was released in 2019, with plans to pit Godzilla against their own rebooted version of King Kong, who debuted in 2017’s Kong: Skull Island. Godzilla vs. Kong was slated for 2020, though, and wouldn’t even end up making that date. Even though Shin Godzilla didn’t really mark the beginning of a new era of Godzilla on the big screen in Japan, Toho did partner with Netflix to produce a trilogy of Godzilla anime films: Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (2017), Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle (2018) and Godzilla: The Planet Eater (also 2018).

Once again, Godzilla had James Bond beat. Even if you only counted the live-action entries, there were still more Godzilla films than Bond films from 2010 to 2020. At the conclusion of the decade, Godzilla stands at 35 starring film roles! That makes Godzilla the longest-running film franchise with the most films within the franchise. James Bond didn’t do too shabby either, though, with the distinction of being the longest-running British film series of all-time, and going into the 2020’s with a total of 27 films.

As for the futures of Godzilla and James Bond, both seem bright. Due to the pandemic, the next films in both franchises have been delayed, but had things panned out the way they were originally scheduled to, James Bond would have beat Godzilla back into the theaters to begin the new decade. No Time to Die was originally set for release in November 2019, but then was postponed to April 2020 when there was a director switch-up. Godzilla vs. Kong had been set for a 2020 release date pretty much from the day it was announced, but got delayed more times than Godzilla has been rebooted! First they said March 13, then May 22, then May 29, then November 20, which is where it stayed for quite a while, and now finally it’s coming out on March 31^st 2021, but we’ll see if they change it again. As of writing this, No Time to Die has been rescheduled for October 2021, but again, we’ll see.

But what about further down the road? What other plans are in place for more James Bond adventures and more bouts of Godzilla destruction? Daniel Craig says No Time to Die will be his last time playing Bond, and I think he means it this time. Therefore, a new actor will be coming in, and I’m certain the studio will finance more films, because the spy genre as a whole continues to go strong, thanks in no small part to another successful ongoing franchise, Mission: Impossible. There’s been discussion about having a person of colour play Bond, or even having a female Bond. They switched it up before by casting Daniel Craig and making it more serious and gritty, so why not switch it up again? Hopefully whatever they do is a success, but it seems unlikely at this point that Bond will ever hope to catch up to Godzilla, let alone surpass the giant monster in number of films.

Monster films as a genre have made a comeback in North America this past while, thanks to not only Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island but also Pacific Rim and even the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Even though it seems like Legendary has sunk too much money into their MonsterVerse for it to be profitable enough to continue past Godzilla vs. Kong, I think the East will have more long-term success with Big G down the road compared to the West. Godzilla might lay dormant in Hollywood in years to come (though I hope not!) but I think Toho has a new series up their sleeve. There had been discussion about rebooting it again with their own series running parallel to America’s, but I think Toho will rise again and start producing them more regularly soon. Shin Godzilla and the anime films were very successful and profitable, so maybe the future of Godzilla is in both animation and live-action (let’s not forget the upcoming anime series Godzilla Singular Point), but whatever the case, I think he will live on with the most success in the country where he was created. I don’t know if James Bond will ever be able to surpass Godzilla for most films in a franchise, though, but I think there is a chance, because he was on top at one point in the past. Only time will tell.

So that’s how the Godzilla series and the James Bond series shape up against each other! Hopefully this was a fun read, somewhat educational, and maybe I’ll do more comparisons like this in the future.