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Entertainment Wednesday, January 9th 2013 at 7:50 pm

Development of New Godzilla an Unnecessary Mess of Petty Disputes and Rewrites

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Did you just feel the ground shake violently beneath your feet? Hear that deafening roar from off in the distance? As much as we wish we could say it’s Godzilla, those tremors and bellowing are actually coming from an even more monstrous abomination: Legendary Pictures. Production for the highly anticipated return of everyone’s favorite king of kaiju hasn’t even started and already the studio is being stymied by one self-imposed speed bump after another. From the studio playing a tedious game of musical chairs with film writers to petty internal disputes, we’d be fortunate to even get 5 minutes of leaked grainy Godzilla footage uploaded to YouTube at the rate things are currently going — which is assuming that everybody at Legendary Pictures can wrap their heads around a grown-up word called compromise.

It has been recently announced that the writer of Godzilla’s potentially last revision of the script — not like we’re holding our collective breath or anything — will be Frank Darabont of The Shawshank Redemption and The Walking Dead fame. It’s a wise decision on Legendary Pictures’ part since penning a story centered around a reptilian engine of destruction isn’t that far removed from one about convicted felons or voracious cadavers; Darabont is certainly in familiar territory here.

This announcement of Darabont’s involvement comes after the Godzilla script, which was written initially as a collaborative effort by David Callaham, David Goyer, and Max Borenstein, was handed down to Iron Man 3‘s Drew Pearce for further changes. So essentially what we’ll most likely be getting at the end of all this, assuming this disaster even has a foreseeable terminus, is a horrific amalgamation of clashing artistic directions for a cinematic icon.

As for the icing on this cake of unwarranted complex executive decisions, Dan Lin and Roy Lee, two producers which Legendary wants to drop from the film, are entangled in a bit of a nasty tiff with the film company:

This one’s going to wind up in the courts, I’m told. My understanding is, Lin and Lee refused to reduce the fees they signed on for when the original deal was made. Legendary brass feel they have the latitude to get rid of them and is doing just that, exercising a pay-or-play clause and paying them upfront money to go away, with no back-end or credit on the film. The potential back-end on a global franchise is where the big bucks are.

After gleaning through this deluge of mind-boggling info, there’s two thoughts we’re walking away with:

  • For God’s sake, it’s a Godzilla movie. It shouldn’t be that difficult.

And secondly:

  • For God’s sake, it’s a Godzilla movie. It shouldn’t be that difficult.

Honestly, it’s a film about a giant reptile with atomic breath that has no regard for urban infrastructure and the tiny people who dwell within it, so they can do themselves a favor right now and drop all aspirations of turning Godzilla into a poignant masterpiece.

(Deadline via Gamma Squad, image via SebastianDooris)

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  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Matt-Frank/7953016 Matt Frank

    “Honestly, it’s a film about a giant reptile with atomic breath that has no regard for urban infrastructure and the tiny people who dwell within it, so they can do themselves a favor right now and drop all aspirations of turning Godzilla into a poignant masterpiece.”

    I was enjoying the article up until that little gem. I’m not going to pretend that all Godzilla films, or even most of them, are “masterpieces.” But the blanket assumption that these films are inherently drivel and the implication that they don’t DESERVE to be “poignant” stinks of someone who doesn’t know what they’re writing about, especially someone who’s never seen the original GOJIRA and its decidedly masterful storytelling and poignant postwar commentary.

    Then again, I guess I’m just a fan. And that makes my opinion irrelevant.

  • Anonymous

    The original Godzilla used Godzilla and a metaphor for nuclear weapons and war. This new film could be amazing if it tries the same

  • Tommy King

    I feel the same exact way about this article. I was shocked when I read such a comment from what seemed to be an honest and self informed writer. Nothing deserves that state of mind. That kind of thinking leads to trash.

  • xenotactics

    There are certainly inaccuracies in this article. The part about the script being a “collaborative effort” was pulled, seemingly, out of thin air as not only has that never been suggested but all known information about the origins of the script (or scripts) contradicts it. Callaham wrote a treatment. Goyer wrote a second treatment. Borenstein wrote a script (based presumably on Goyer’s treatment). Drew Pearce apparently made changes regarding the ages of the characters (it’s anybody’s guess as to what that really means). We don’t yet know what Darabont’s rewrite consists of. Nobody seems to know much in general, which means that it would have been much more appropriate if the article’s tone didn’t suggest that the author not only knew what was behind the delays but was also equipped to render judgement on their validity.
    This is a good example of when snark (and snark for its own sake) interferes with informative, sincere journalism.

  • RSaucedo

    People with a lot of money are never happy because they are used to getting what they want.

  • Ed Straker

    KKXG: King Kong vs. Gigantosaurus – The Adventures of Yuriko Kumage is the original Godzilla copyright, it’s a FANTASTIC STORY, a love story, and the original screenplay is known as “The Shaku-Kyakuhon”. There are no “oral agreements” with that, the agency sits and waits, and since it’s already published as a novel (see Amazon) since 2010 (and in tangible form since 2005), the Hollywood studios can just use that. The reason is, that is The BIG ONE. It’s the King Kong and Gigantosaurus (or it can be Godzilla if they just ask because the registered copyright was and still has “Godzilla” written on it).

    All other Godzilla stories fail, unfortunately. One cannot write a real Godzilla story without being and working directly at the source, directly with the God.

    In fact, in the USA, that author owns the original Creature Double Feature audios; therefore, all others had to hear what [he] provided anyway to make “their stuff” too.

    He has THE STUFF, you go with him. Period.

    Thank you.

  • Anonymous

    No. Every single time one of these Kaiju films tries to be artistic, it sucks ass. No one gives two hot goddamns about the “human” aspect of a godzilla movie. We’re here for destruction. We’re here for mayhem. We’re here ideally to see a brawl. The less human time there is the higher the odds of it being a good godzilla movie. They should look less at gone with the wind and more at wwe. It’s the one time in all of human history when wrestling is relevant.

  • Anonymous

    It wont work. The spectre of nuclear destruction is a relic of cold war era politics and warfare. We don’t have ubiquitous bomb raid warnings in schools anymore. We don’t have politicians on tv scaring the hell out of everyone with cuban missile crisis level events. The generation that fought wwII is rapidly disappearing now. Even in Japan,t here is a stigma about the people who lived through the bombings such that it’s not something anyone really brings up in public. Trying to tie a movie to a concept that was topical more than half a century ago is a sure way to bore the hell out of everyone but history buffs, and the price of a seat and popcorn says history buffs aren’t going to come to a godzilla flick to get their fix.

    Hollywood constantly dumbs down properties with needless michael bay explosions and over the top cgi. Here is the ONE TIME that this is EXACTLY the approach you should take to a movie and everyone is dick swinging about “scripts”. No one wants a “thinking man’s” godzilla. We want two monsters. Several broken and burning cities, and as little human time on screen as possible. Damnit all, get it right!

  • http://www.facebook.com/sherman.newell1 Sherman Newell

    Godzilla is my all time favorite Dino-Related movie and the 1985 version was Abysmal to say the least and Legendary Pictures needs to stay out of the ‘picture’ pardon the pun, if the 2014 version is to be a killer hit.
    This is the way I see things;
    1) All of the Godzilla Movies need to have exact copies of the same movie for those of us who are pure gaiden and do not speak Japanese.
    2) They also need to remake all of the movies starting with Gojira (1954) because most of those people are dead( and I have nothing but respect for them) and make all of the movies follow something close to a plot like a T.V. show but all in movie format.
    3)The Newest of the movies not be a useless Gecko from the middle to late 1980′s That was not Godzilla, it was a fucking Gecko on Crack!
    Finally there needs to be a whole lot of thinking about the plots of each move so as not to write yourselves into a corner that you cannot get out of without totally screwing the entire satire styled plot up completely, and when the last movie is finally written and put on the market, start over with some other Giant Creature like Gamera and do the same thing because Gamera was always friendly to children I barely remember because I was born in 1962, yes I am nearly 51y.o. but I still love cartoobns and Godzilla.