Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Do you hear that? It’s the unmistakable sound of colossal Godzilla news, wading in from the sea to smash a city to smithereens. And it’s the news Godzilla fans have been hoping for ever since Godzilla Minus One dropped. The most recent kaiju outing from Japan proved to be a major success – an outstanding film that made fans across the globe, and even crashed the Oscars by winning the Visual Effects award. That was, in large part, down to Takashi Yamazaki – not only the writer-director of the film, but also its visual effects producer, having spent much of his career in the VFX industry. And the news is this: not only is Godzilla returning, but Takashi is too.

As confirmed by Toho, Takashi will officially be back to helm a brand new Godzilla film – as delivered via an ‘emergency announcement’.

As the video states, Takashi’s next Godzilla movie has been greenlit, and he’ll be back as director, writer, and on VFX once more. And… well, that’s it for now, with the clip promising “further updates to follow”. While the assumption would be that the film will be a direct sequel to Godzilla Minus One (‘Godzilla Zero’, anyone?), that hasn’t been confirmed – it’s possible Takashi might choose to take the monster saga in another direction. But the final moments of Minus One did tease more to come from Shikishima and Noriko, so there’ll surely be hopes from fans that the human characters make a comeback alongside the giant lizard.

How long it takes the next Godzilla movie to emerge remains to be seen, but however long production goes on for, here’s hoping the result lives up to Takashi’s previous effort. Either way, this is one hell of a way to celebrate the big guy’s 70th anniversary.