Familiar faces return to the big screen in 2024

Previewing Japanese films for any given year is partly an exercise in deja vu — I’ve seen these movies before, or rather ones very much like them. This is especially true of Toho, the studio, distributor and exhibitor that towers over its competition like its iconic character, Godzilla.

Toho’s lineup for 2024, features many familiar franchises and genres, which will doubtless produce most of the year’s biggest box-office hits for Japan. Toho has no sequel in the works for its 2023 monster hit, Takashi Yamazaki’s “Godzilla Minus One,” though Yamazaki has hinted that he is open to making one. The distributor will, however, release “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” a new Hollywood-produced epic directed by Adam Wingard (“Death Note,” “The Guest”), just in time for the Golden Week holiday period starting at the end of April.

Also contending for the year’s box-office championship is the theatrical follow-up to “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba — The Movie: Mugen Train,” the anime period actioner that became the highest-grossing Japanese film of all time following its October 2020 release, earning more than $500 million worldwide.