CHRIS DELMAS/AFP/Getty ImagesIn terms of dream jobs, it’s hard to beat “Chief Godzilla officer.” Keiji Ota has held that title since 2017, and while his recent interview with the Japanese site NewsPicks does put business first and cool Godzilla facts second, the plans the Toho executive lays out for the next 50 (or even 100!) years of the franchise — already one of the longest-running in history — are exciting enough that we can put all that aside. (Ota has been photographed many times next to Godzilla figures, so maybe he is a monster kid at heart.) First of all, Ota says that Toho will be taking a cue from Legendary’s Monsterverse and expanding the cinematic universe of its Godzilla films. It’s not clear what form this new universe will take just yet, but it does have a name: “Godzilla World.” Later in the interview, Ota says that the audience for Godzilla is aging — at least domestically — so we can expect at least a few of these efforts to be new media: “To attract new fans in their teens and twenties, I want to try my hand at video content other than movies ... such as TV streaming series and games,” Ota says. (Interviews were run through Google Translate.)Interestingly, it sounds like “Godzilla World” will exist separately from the two most recent Japanese Godzilla movies, Shin Godzilla (directed by Hideaki Anno) and Godzilla Minus One (from Takashi Yamazaki, who also directed the upcoming Godzilla Minus Zero). “If Toho itself were to create [an] original story for Godzilla, in addition to the Godzilla films made by Hideaki Anno and Takashi Yamazaki, they could systematically develop spinoffs as well,” Ota says, suggesting something akin to the Lucasfilm Story Group that would develop Godzilla storylines at a company level. He also refers to independent creators being given the rights to the IP — “various creators are welcome to join in at any point,” Ota says — saying he hopes for multiple versions of Godzilla to exist simultaneously for different audiences and age groups. Ota also expressed admiration for Gareth Edwards (Godzilla, 2014) and Michael Dougherty (Godzilla: King of the Monsters), saying that they “know what Godzilla is all about on a visceral level” and can be trusted with the material because they watched the Godzilla movies Toho “repeatedly and inexpensively” licensed on TV stations around the world in the ‘90s. Another big development, which Ota first eased earlier this month, is that starting with Godzilla Minus Zero Toho’s Godzilla movies will release simultaneously in theaters in Japan and North America — or as close as simultaneous as you can get when the International Date Line is involved, anyway. For a certain generation of Godzilla fans, this level of international cooperation is a big deal. For years after Hollywood’s first, extremely embarrassing attempt at a Godzilla movie in 1998, Toho subtly (and not-so-subtly) made fun of the American Godzilla in Millennium-period Godzilla movies. It all peaked in 2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars, in which the Japanese Godzilla swats Roland Emmerich’s puny “‘Zilla” aside with a single swipe of his tail:Now it’s “Godzilla’s World,” and we’re all living in it.