Godzilla to return…no Emmerich!

Updated on March 30, 2010 By Ken Begg 27 Comments

Legendary Pictures, which has often teamed with Warners (they worked on Dark Knight, and this weekend’s Clash of the Titans remake), has procured the rights for the Godzilla character and are hoping to have a film out by 2012. Obviously this won’t involve (you’d have to think) a man in a suit, but their real advantage is that they’d have to work pretty damn hard to make a piece of crap as big as the Tri-Star Godzilla.

I can only imagine they’ll go with a more traditional design and restore Godzilla’s oral beam, because if they can’t get even those details right, fandom will rain holy hell down ‘pon their heads.

Fingers crossed.

UPDATE:  Per Rock’s comment below, this is the maquette Stan Winston made for the Godzilla movie before they barfed out the one they used instead.  I remember when this 43 inch (!) statue was being sold on eBay.  They expected upwards of $20,000 for it, although I’m not sure what it actually sold for.

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  • David Fullam

    All we need. Another American Godzilla film. We all know how well the last one turned out!

  • America is perfectly able to make a great giant monster movie. Just look at Yhe Giant Claw, Beginning of the End, or Night of the Lepus. Classics all.

  • First step, get a director who actually WANTS to make a Godzilla movie. Emmerich’s constant complaints about how he was too good for the material because of Godzilla’s “cheese factor”–hey, Emmerich, fuck you–was the kiss of death for that movie. Find a Sam Raimi and you’re halfway there.

  • Theodine

    I didn’t think the American Godzilla film was that bad. The only thing I really hated was the whiny female lead who seemed to get more annoying everytime I watched it. I also liked the cartoon series that followed.

  • The Rev. D.D.

    I refuse to let my hopes get up, but I’ll probably go see it anyway. And once again start working on my years-old Godzilla script.

    Ken–Don’t forget a big “fuck you” to Dean Devlin for his part.
    I too hope for a director who truly loves Godzilla, and doesn’t just pay lip service, or at least has the chops to take it seriously and pull it off. I don’t expect a contender to the original or the ’90s Gamera series; just give me something good, guys!
    Raimi would definitely be an interesting choice; I wonder if he’d be interested?

    Sandy–To be fair, America also gave us Them! and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, which stand proudly amongst the cream of the crop of monster movies.
    Of cousre, have we gotten a good one since the ’50s?…Maybe Cloverfield, although (shockingly) I still haven’t seen it yet.

    Theodine–Maria Patillo’s character was quite annoying, I agree. I disagree that she was the biggest problem, being that just about everything that wasn’t Jean Reno or G trashing something was a problem. (I think the childish “Mayor Ebert” thing made me the angriest, though.)
    I agree on the cartoon series, which is about the only reason I’m glad the movie was made. Well, that and those great trailers–even though they led to my hopes being utterly crushed upon viewing the finished product.

  • I think there’s a good chance the next Godzilla will be much more faithful; for the most part, reverence is in right now, since it paid off so massively for movies like Transformers. People rag on Michael Bay, but overall he treated a pre-existing property with respect, and he understood what had worked about it. There are things in ROTF that practically nobody outside of the fandom would catch or understand. And with the horrible result and performance of the last American Godzilla, I’ll bet (I hope) that they apply the same strategy, and learn a lesson from what’s come before as well.

  • Rock Baker

    Well, the Tristar flick was fun for the most part, in that brainless, “Ooh, look at that!”, Army vs Giant Monster sort of way. What really killed it was the baby monsters. If you could find a way to remove that entire segment you’d be left with, if not a GOOD monster movie, a FUN monster movie.
    (On a side note, my brother is not going to like this news. He and Pop are working their fingers to the bone to build a Godzilla suit for a comic book convention this year. They plan to make the ultimate Godzilla suit in the hopes of getting some attention from Toho, even planning a huge reveal cerimony in town. The idea was to show how well an American Godzilla could be made, and hopefully spur Godzilla’s return. Ultimately, my brother wants to play the monster. Legendary might see the suit, but would they care?)

  • Rock Baker

    And as for The Giant Claw, Beginning of the End, and Night of the Lepus, I’ll just say this: Fun is Fun, and the combined features had Peter Graves, Jeff Morrow, Morris Ankurm, Thomas B. Henry, Rory Calhun, Deforest Kelley, Paul Frees, and here’s the important part -Mara Corday, Peggie Castle, and Janet Leigh. The defense rests.

  • As one of the sad, sad Godzilla fans who actually liked the first American Godzilla, I will no doubt enjoy this one, too.

    Because I clearly have no standards.

    The big hope I have? That this new one inspires Toho to show us Yankees how it’s done.

  • BT

    I’ve never understood the hatred of the American version. I could certainly understand being disappointed in it, but not the hatred. It was a solid 2.5 star movie. Maria Pitillo was annoying beyond comprehension, Matthew Broderick was as bland as Andrew McCarthy at his worst, and the baby Godzillas at Madison Square Garden was annoying and a ripoff of Jurassic Park. None of that worked.

    That being said, the first 10 minutes of the movie was very effective, and the attack sequences were really well done. That is at least half the reason I like to see these films. The movie wasn’t perfect, but I thought, at least with a fast forward button handy, it was re watchable.

  • BT — I think you’re a bit higher than I would be, I’d give it one and a half stars. (I saw some of it recently, and let’s just say it didn’t age well.) The beginning is indeed good. And Rock is right; I always argued if you just clipped out the entire 45 minutes involving the baby raptors, you’d have arguably a two and a half or even three star movie. Of course, it would help further if you cut out pretty much the entire cast save Jean Reno, all of whom uniformly sucked, although not as badly as the female lead, who I still believe gave the single worst starring performance I’ve ever seen in a Hollywood film ever.

    The thing that really raises the ire of fans, however, it is that it is NOT a Godzilla movie. Emmerich et al. would have inspired a lot less anger if they had just called it something else. (Actually, the film is more reminiscent of Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.) The issue is that the monster was in no way Godzilla. Emmerich was clearly pissed off–in the same petty way, I think, that George Lucas was when fans rejected Jar Jar Binks–that he was forced to matte in flame effects over his lauded “improved” Godzilla (who was only supposed to let loose with a wind gust now and then), while the real issue was that not giving Godzilla his oral beam weapon is like making a Superman movie where he doesn’t fly and isn’t bulletproof. And of course, that second bit is entirely true of the Tri-Star Godzilla, too. A monster that has to hide from the military and is taken out with a couple of missiles is NOT Godzilla.

    This gets back to one of the central mysteries of Hollywood, which they only now seem to be (to some extent) figuring out: Why would you pay good money, often millions of dollars, to secure the rights to a specific property or character if you have absolutely no interest in actually making a movie about that character. In other words, there was no reason to call that movie Godzilla, but they did. That bought them some initial interest from fans, but at the price of writing a check that their film was in fact never even intended to cash.

  • Rock Baker

    On a side note, Godzilla 1998 is one of the great “could’ve been” movies of the decade for another reason. Before Patrick Tatop..Tat..Tattahp, that guy who designed the monster with the huge chin that they kept calling Godzilla, him, before he came on board, Stan Winston had already been hired to design the American Godzilla and had even built a maquette. It looked much closer to the mark, and seems to’ve been designed as a suit. Images are floating around the internet, and after seeing one and comparing it to the P. T. version, well, it raises even MORE slack-jawed “what were they thinking?” responses. Really? You had Stan Winston on your team and you booted him out? How many Oscars does the guy have to win for you to know that letting him go is a bad idea?

  • Elizabeth

    Wait, didn’t we already have a second American Godzilla? I think it was called “Cloverfield.”

    I would also be remiss in my wifely duties if I did not point out what my husband never fails to, to wit, that Deanzilla forgot about what’s actually underneath Madison Square Garden — a little thing called PENN STATION.

  • BeckoningChasm

    Why would you pay good money, often millions of dollars, to secure the rights to a specific property or character if you have absolutely no interest in actually making a movie about that character.

    Ego, pure and simple ego. “Sure, I’ll make this movie, but I have to put my own creative stamp on the property, so everyone knows how awesome I am, and how I’m slumming by doing this crap. People will say, ‘Whoa, this is what we’ve wanted all along,’ and I’ll get all those awards.”

  • silverwheel

    Unfortunately, I hear Emmerich is on tap to direct Foundation. Asimov is probably beneath him, too.

  • Not-So-Great Cthulhu

    Unfortunately, I hear Emmerich is on tap to direct Foundation.

    Ow my head…

  • They’d be better off doing a remake of ‘Pulgasari’, the North Korean giant monster movie.

  • Marsden

    I think Ken’s got a good point, if they didn’t call it “Godzilla” and named it something original it wouldn’t have been too bad. Certainly not great, but not that bad.

  • even as a non-Godzilla giant mosnter movie Emmerich’s mongoloid baby was pretty sucky. I went to see it NOT thinking it was a Godzilla movie and enjoyed it about as much as the Korean remake of Yonggary.

    I was only fooling about the US’s inability to make good giant monsters. Two out of three King Kongs isn’t bad, I liked Cloverfield once the opening party scene ended. I’m not sure if Them, Tremors, or The Blob count as “giant” monsters since they really operate at the personal level, but Tarantula, The Deadly Mantis, 20 Million Miles to Earth, both versions of the Lost World, and Eight-Legged Freaks are all highly entertaining.

    But most of these are made by smaller companies. A big-budget giant mosnters might, paradoxically, be beyond Hollywood’s ability to pull off.

  • monoceros4

    I’ve don’t quite understand why the Godzilla movies are held in such high regard. I’ve never seen the original Godzilla and I fully accept, from everything I’ve read, that it’s very good. The couple of later Godzilla movies I’ve seen, however, are plain and simply boring. I’ve seen Godzilla vs. Megalon and one other…it was a while ago and I can’t recall the title, but I think it was Godzilla vs. Mothra. I can’t remember at what point in which movie during whichever inconclusive fight was going on screen but I clearly remember suddenly thinking: “This is all the same. I don’t know who’s fighting who for what and I don’t care.” Then there’s the Gamera movie formula (again, excepting the first one), in which the title character spends most of the movie hurt and offscreen so you get the time for lots of tedious human interest scenes. Sounds like an American movie!

    I’ve never seen the Roland Emmerich Godzilla either, and I suppose it is bad because Emmerich makes bad movies, but as for failing to live up to some sort of high Japanese standard I don’t see it. No way Emmerich’s crap can be that much less entertaining than endless sequences of indistinguishable monsters bashing into each other, where sometimes you can only tell who’s winning because of how much longer the movie has left to run.

  • P Stroud

    “First step, get a director who actually WANTS to make a Godzilla movie. Emmerich’s constant complaints about how he was too good for the material because of Godzilla’s ‘cheese factor'”

    The director of “The Day After Tomorrow” and said that? Methinks Rollie is entirely under the sway of our horned Demigod. Has anyone else besides Rollie put out such a volume of Jabootuish schlock in recent years? Maybe Rollie could be another Patron Saint of Jabootu. He could sit on the right hand of Jerry Bruckheimer.

  • P Stroud

    “I’ve never seen the Roland Emmerich Godzilla either, and I suppose it is bad because Emmerich makes bad movies, but as for failing to live up to some sort of high Japanese standard I don’t see it.”

    The first Godzilla is entriely different in tone than the other movies Toho got released in the States,except maybe Godzilla2000. The original is quite adult and serious. The later ones were designed as kids’ entertainment.

    You can get the original as well, “Gojira”, on Netflix. It is a top notch example of atmosphere and movie-making on a budget. None of the later output which largely depicted Godzilla as the “protector of children everywhere” really compares. Much like the Star Wars prequels take place in an entirely different universe than IV, V and VI.

  • Rock Baker

    I just put my hat into the ring to direct the new Godzilla movie. Seriously.

  • The joy of a Godzilla movie, quite simply, is watching giant monsters wreck things. Because that’s expensive, it needs to be mixed in with some kind of plot. To be fair, Godzilla vs. Megalon is agreed, even by the standards of kaiju fans, to be rather low on the totem pole.

    Not all Gamera films keep him offscreen the whole film. And the best Japanese kaiju movies of all might be the 90s Gameras, in which the human drama actually adds to the plot, rather than detracting.

  • PB210

    “None of the later output which largely depicted Godzilla as the “protector of children everywhere” really compares. Much like the Star Wars prequels take place in an entirely different universe than IV, V and VI”.

    The Star Wars series derived from children’s entertainment anyway (e.g. the Flash Gordon serials). Also, the Ewoks debuted in VI.

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