So, as everyone and their pet kaiju knows by now, the director of Legendary Pictures’ highly anticipated Godzilla re-boot, due in 2012 just before the world ends, is to be Gareth Edwards. Edwards, you may recall, is a British filmmaker who recently shot to critical fame with his indie slice of low-budget giant-monster drama, Monsters (see the latest Backbrain post on the film here, then follow the links at the bottom if you want to know more). (Source: Hollywood Reporter)
Edwards will, if nothing else, give value for money, especially if he follows the film-making regime he instigated for Monsters, which was made for peanuts (that is, about $800,000 according to Box Office Mojo) and looks great. With many more millions of dollars at his disposal, and a genuine fondness for the genre, he may very well give us a Godzilla movie that’s worthy of the King of the Monsters. However, one has to say that there is considerable difference between his Monsters (in which the monster action is minimal and secondary to the human drama) and what is needed for the proposed Godzilla film, even if the two films are in the same general ball-park. Can he handle the more epic scope that the Big G requires? Perhaps. Certainly there are many less promising directorial choices that could have been made.
That still leaves script, cast and studio interference to deal with, but as representatives of the latter have already expressed a desire to make a film that respects the Big G and his fans, things are looking good for the result.
Images of Godzilla
To celebrate this bit of news, I include some new images of Godzilla. It should be noted that none of these make any claim to a connection with the Legendary Pictures film.
Above is the cover of issue 1 of the new Godzilla comic Godzilla: Monster World from IDW, by Alex Ross. The series is to be written by Eric Powell (The Goon) and Tracy Marsh, with internal art by Phil Hester (Kevin Smith’s The Green Hornet). Powell and Ross will each provide a cover for each issue. (Source: Matt Frank, iFanboy).
Other treats are the fact that for each issue Eric Powell will provide a gatefold wraparound cover featuring many of the iconic Toho monsters (see Powell’s cover for issue 1 below), and fellow artist Alex Ross a separate cover with an image of Godzilla himself.
The IDW news release describes what we can expect thus:
“In GODZILLA®: MONSTER WORLD, a full-scale apocalypse is brewing. The monsters are a force of nature whose attacks can be no more predicted or rationalized than a lightning strike. There will be no clean-cut heroes with perfectly chiseled chins and capes billowing in the wind; only ordinary human beings struggling desperately to survive in a world gone mad.” (IDW)
To introduce the series, comic stores will be able to request a special “incentive” cover showing their store being stomped by the Big G. Below is the cover by Matt Frank, with a space into which the individual store will be sketched (Source).
Meanwhile, treat yourself to a couple of Matt Frank’s images of Godzilla that don’t relate to the IDW project — in the first Godzilla vs the Transformers and in the second a robotic assault on Monster Island (click to enlarge):
Finally here’s the latest page from that other great G project I’m always trying to convince people to check out, in this case one that will only cost you a few pixels and the bandwidth it takes to go to the site. It’s artist Todd Tennant’s graphic novel rendition of the rejected Ted Elliott/Terry Rossio screenplay for Jan de Bont’s abandoned pre-Emmerich US Godzilla film, for which much pre-production was done but which never eventuated (1994). Check out the previous 77 pages of Todd’s great project here.
- Written by Robert Hood. Thanks for the heads-up, Avery.
