Toei held a pre-production press conference yesterday for the upcoming and final Godzilla movie. “Godzilla: Final Wars” is scheduled to open on December 4, and stars Matsuoka Masahiro (27) of the Johnny’s pop group Tokio and Kikukawa Rei (26). It will also feature Takarada Akira (70), who starred in the very first Godzilla movie. Production starts in Sydney this Friday and is scheduled to finish November 15. It will be the biggest “Gojira” flick ever, with a budget of ¥2 billion, about twice that of recent Toei versions. It will also be the most international, taking the big lizard to New York, Sydney, Paris and Shanghai before he wreaks havoc in Japan. Celebrating his 50th birthday this year, Godzilla is enjoying something of a boom. The original 1954 movie is currently showing in New York and San Fransisco. He made his first appearance in the U.S. in 1956 and got a Hollywood makeover courtesy of Roland Emmerich in 1998. The following year, the Japanese production “Godzilla 2000” opened in 2,000 theaters across the U.S. The 27 previous movies in the series have drawn over 98 million people to the cinema and the target for this project is to smash the 100 million barrier. Just the job for the world’s most famous monster.