Future Fads: Kaiju

2018 - 2019 are going to be BIG years. I mean that literally. Godzilla 2: King of the Monsters, Pacific Rim 2: Uprising, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, are all movies coming out that feature giant monsters destroying things and eating people. (I'm assuming Jurassic World will at least have a T-Rex or some other excessively large predator chasing cars.)

OMGOMGOMGOMG!!! I can't WAIT!!!

Still, that's six months away at least, why bring it up now?

Because it's a window. For a time next year at least, there's going to be a huge push for Kaiju / giant monster stories. Depending on how well those movies are made and do in the theaters, people will be looking for more. A large part of that demand will be filled with books. Likely novels, and anthologies. Now, disclaimer, I'm not any kind of forecast expert. I'm just trying to base this off common sense and what I've seen in the past.

Pacific Rim came out in 2013, and the good American Godzilla came out in 2014, and both times, for the next few months, all you heard about was kaiju / giant monsters. There were cheap knock-off movies, books, comics, and toys. Even if it was just these two movies alone, it would likely result in a huge boost for this sub-genre, especially with these being sequels and making expanded universes.

But in addition to those two movies, we also have Jurassic World 2, and Rampage coming out. The timeline for releases is currently set like this.

Pacific Rim: Uprising - February 23, 2018
Rampage - April 20, 2018
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom - June 22, 2018
Godzilla: King of the Monsters - March 22, 2019

That's a lot of giant monsters, which should keep the fad running well into 2019. And yes, I do think this will be a pretty major fad.

I have no intention to just be jumping on the bandwagon. I intend to be holding onto the hood or the roof.

See, here's the thing. I'm sure once the first movie hits, we'll see the wave start as people rush to pump out books. They'll pound through 50,000 words in a couple months, probably find some cheap editor (or use no editor at all!) and find some quick and ready cover art to slap on and drop their work into Kindle. Even if someone works hard, takes their time, and does everything proper, it's going to take six months to a year to get it published. At best, if you wait until the first movie hits theaters, you're getting out at the mid-way point of the fad. At worst, the movies will crash and burn, and the fad will languish.

However, even if the fad languishes and dies in short order, if you take the time to do things properly and write a good book, it'll transcend the fad and find success on its own. If the fad takes off, it'll simply take your work with it to new heights.

So, if you can see a fad coming like this one looks to be looming, and you have a story that would fit right in, why wouldn't you aim for it? That's what I'm going to do. Right now, while I have time to get it right. If you love giant monsters as much as I do and you're a writer, I suggest you do the same.

Can you really predict the fads of the future? Eh. I don't really know if this is predicting or not, but it's not hard to see which way the wind's blowing right now.

~ Shaun