Blogspot Zennie62 collared producer Brian Rogers at Universal Studios recently, and got him to spill a few beans about the direction of Legendary Pictures' new **Godzilla.
Protracted negotiations with the giant atomic lizard's parent company Toho have been underway since 2007, but with the licence finally granted, Rogers says that "Legendary Pictures seemed to be the perfect home. All the conversations we had with them made it clear that they wanted to pay homage to the traditional character."
That, lest we forget, is a direct crack at the unloved 1998 Godzilla directed by Roland Emmerich, about which Rogers is not particularly circumspect. "Legendary did not want to make the same decisions Sony did," he says. Specifically, we're not going to see "a more iguana-like Godzilla laying eggs".
Rogers references Christopher Nolan's Batman films, also produced by Legendary, as a touchstone, bringing Godzilla into the 21st century and tweaking some of the details, but keeping him recognisably as he's always been. And There Will Be Monsters: "I think I can safely say that there'll be other monsters that Godzilla will fight. That's what the fanbase wants to see. Not having that in the Sony version was a drawback. Godzilla fighting the US army was not in the spirit of the character."
Mothra? Ghidora? Rodan? Actually, Godzilla's greatest enemy may still be Tim Burton's **Monsterpocalypse, if it goes ahead. 2012 is looking like the summer for a Giant Monster All-Out Attack{