by Chris Eaton-
Is this a design for the new Legendary Pictures Godzilla?
The design up top came to the attention of the Internet today. It was proclaimed to be a concept sculpt of what the new American Godzilla will look like. Suffice to say, anyone with half a fucking brain would realize that there’s not even a director attached to Godzilla, so this is NOT a concept design for a new American Godzilla. No, we wont know what the big guy will look like for a while. But I do like that this was considered concept art. I myself, would of LOVED this design for a new age bad ass Godzilla. Mostly, because it looks like Godzilla.
So I got to thinking, with all of this talk about Godzilla’s new American film, I’d like to give a brief history of the major failed attempts of Godzilla in the good ol US of A.
GODZILLA in 3D
The irony is seeping here. With the current craze with 3D, every tentpol summer film is being filmed or converted to the format. Though it’s not the first time that a Godzilla film was set to be filmed in the glorious third dimension.
Written by Fred Dekker (Monster Squad) and to be directed by Steve Miner (Lake Placid) This Godzilla would have been the first real American Godzilla film. Miner had planned on filming the flick in 3D and drafted dinosaur artist Will Stout to design a Godzilla for stop motion purposes.
Stout’s Godzilla had a lot of his own trademark designs, and was overall, more dinosaur like. Even though it was a bit radical in design, it still retained just about everything that’s recognizable as Godzilla
Unfortunately, no studio wanted to back what would have been an expensive film at the time (early 80’s) Thus, Miner’s Godzilla never saw the light of day except in Stouts story boards.
Tri Star’s Original Pitch:
Back in 1994, a few years after Tri Star Pictures bought the rights to Godzilla, the had Ted Elliot and Terry Russio (Pirates of the Caribbean) draft a film for Godzilla’s big budget debut. Juan De Bont, coming off of Speed was set to direct. Stan Winston Studios and Digital Domain would be doing the effects for the film.
Again, budget came into play. Back in the early 90’s, post $100 million dollar films were not the norm. Waterworld was at the time, the most costly film ever made, and it didn’t earn back it’s investment. The inital budget proposed for Godzilla was $120 million. Sony didn’t want to pay, so De Bont left. A few years later, Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin would make a $120 million Godzilla film that many would rather forget.
Much like the 3D film, the new design was very close to Godzilla’s original look, but with a more modern feel to it. It seems to be a trend that just about everyone got the idea that Godzilla needs to look like Godzilla. Devlin and Emmerich apparently didnt’ get the message.
If Legendary is paying attention, I would say that this is the direction that they should be leaning towards. I have faith that they will.