Keith Aiken, of Henshin!Online, has revealed a truck load of information regarding what's in store for Toho fans on the region 1 market in the future, according to Toho's Los Angeles branch. A bulk of the information regards Classic Media's involvement with their DVD titles. As heavily hinted at, the company has indeed picked up the rights to both Godzilla Raids Again (1955) and Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964), while Keith also reveals that the US rights to the Hanna-Barbera Godzilla cartoon, which had reverted back to Toho, were acquired as well.

In regards to Classic Media's currently upcoming titles, some of which were originally slated to be released this month, it seems the process was held up due to extended negotiations between the company and Toho. With the dust settled, it appears that Classic Media has renewed the contracts for a number of their titles, relinquished the rights to the rest, and has been in the process of acquiring new materials for all of the films. The movies that Classic Media is renewing include: Godzilla (1954), Rodan (1956), Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964), Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965), The War of the Gargantuas (1966), All Monsters Attack (1969) and Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975). The company's current plan is to release all of these titles with both the Japanese and English dubbed audio tracks, as Classic Media is searching out the best sources for the older English dubbings. Titles which were not renewed by the company, and will have the US rights revert back to Toho in 2006 so they can attempt to resell them the next year, include: Frankenstein vs. Baragon (1965), Lake of Dracula (1971), Evil of Dracula (1974), ESPY (1974), Conflagration (1975) and, most likely, Prophecies of Nostradamus (1974).

Meanwhile, Criterion has picked up the rights for Kon Ichikawa's Princess from the Moon (1987). Given the firm's track record for extras, one can only hope that there might be some more information regarding the scrapped Nessie project, for which the film's dragon prop originated from, to be found on the DVD release.

Keith also mentioned the situation with some titles currently owned in the US market by other companies. Films that were addressed include:

- Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973): still under contract in the US with Goodtimes. However, the company is in the middle of bankruptcy, which leaves the film without a US distributor until another company buys Goodtimes assets, or the contract expires.

- The Return of Godzilla (1984): After New World, who released the title as Godzilla 1985 in the US, went out of business, Lakeshore Entertainment Group secured the rights to the film. Lakeshore's involvement with Warner Bros has led them to approach Toho about acquiring materials for the film, as Warner Bros is also looking for a US print of the movie for a possible release.

- Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989): US rights are still under contract from Miramax.

Toho also revealed, since most of their Godzilla and Kurosawa films are already purchased, that they intend to focus on getting US firms to release their lesser-known titles overseas, with some examples including the International Secret Police series and the Classic Media titles which will revert back to Toho in the near future.

Again, a huge thanks goes out to Keith Aiken, of Henshin!Online, for allowing us to post this information.