Legendary Pictures, frequent parters of Warner Brothers and revivalist of many a franchise, has an American reboot of Godzilla set for 2012. Very little information has surfaced about the project, though a conversation with a producer at the 3D Entertainment Summit has left a blogger associated with Zennie62 (a blogger collective, it seems) rich with Godzilla details, straight from Producer Brian Rogers’ mouth. Rogers is a producer working between Legendary Pictures and Toho, and in a video interview he dumps a fairly substantial amount of information, which I’ve summarized below.
• 2012 is the targeted release date, but obviously is contingent on everything coming together in time
• Rogers became involved after a conversation with Yoshimitsu Banno (who directed Godzilla Vs. Hedorah and was a Toho company director) who was interested in IMAX 3D. Rogers helped in 2007 to tie up the rights with Toho to make the connection with Legendary for a, naturally, 3D film.
• Complete reboot, modern, but without disregard for the history of the character. Legendary doesn’t want to make “the same decisions that Sony did.”
• The requisite Batman Begins name-check happens.
• It’s been long since debunked, but in case there was any nagging doubt: This thing…
…bullshit.
• Rogers believes he can “safely say there will be other monsters that Godzilla will fight.” He believes the lack of another monster was a big drawback to the ’98 version. He doesn’t mention Hank Azaria.
Frankly, these are all things I would have assumed- I’m not sure what other pitch for a Godzilla film would work these days other than “Modern and gritty, but not shitty like that Broderick one.” That said, multiple monsters and a more reverential, classic look are a good start if another Hollywood Godzilla is destined to happen. Feel free to watch the convention floor video yourself, below.