Movies
Joe Dante Almost Directed ‘Godzilla Reborn’
With Godzilla back in theaters and kicking ass, SciFiJapan caught up with producer Michael Schlesinger who speaks in depth about his unmade project, Godzilla Reborn, the nearly-made American sequel to the Japan Godzilla 2000 Millenium, which was a low budget project with man-in-suit effects to be produced by Toho technicians.
Schlesinger, who produced and wrote the U.S. version of Godzilla 2000, recounts the genesis of the project, and how Gremlins director Joe Dante become involved.
Believe it or not, it started as a joke. I’m friends with Joe Dante and Jon Davison, and one day late in 2000, I bumped into Jon on the lot — he was producing THE SIXTH DAY at the time. I mentioned that Toho had liked our version [of GODZILLA 2000] so much that they were using it in some other countries where it hadn’t yet opened, such as India, and were even playing it in Tokyo for a week before GODZILLA VS. MEGAGUIRUS opened. Jon said, “Yep, you’re really Mr. Godzilla now.” I replied, “Yeah, and if this company [Sony] is smart, they’ll get you, me and Joe to do the next American one.” He laughed and said, “Hey, we’re there,” and then we moved on.
Now, I’d been kidding, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. The situation was analogous to STAR TREK: a lot of people had problems with the first film, so Paramount said, “Okay, fine, let’s give ‘em what they want — a cheap movie that looks like the TV show.” And thus was born THE WRATH OF KHAN and the franchise was saved. I felt we could do the same thing with Godzilla. So I called Jon and Joe and asked if they’d be interested in my pursuing this, and they both said absolutely.
I then went in to see the head of production at Columbia, and pitched him the idea of us doing a modestly budgeted man-in-suit film, using Toho’s effects people. Their Godzilla films were running about $10-12 million at the time, so figuring a bigger budget to allow for American actors and other factors, I felt we could do it for around $20 million — about a sixth of what the Emmerich film cost. He liked the idea, but was not in a position to set this kind of project in motion. However, if I were willing to write a script on spec, that would make it a lot easier. That was fine with me, and I promptly set to typing.
You can read the entire interview by clicking here. Can you imagine if Dante had directed a man-in-suit Godzilla sequel? How fun would that have been?!
Image Source: Toho, Ltd. and TriStar Pictures
Described as “Ted meets ET,” David Mikalson’s raunchy comedy Goblin is being brought to life over at A24, and Will Forte (“The Four Seasons”) is now in talks to star.
Deadline first reported the news this afternoon.
Kenneth Branagh has been cast to voice the titular Goblin in the upcoming A24 movie, with the character said to be “green-colored” as well as “anatomically correct.”
Skyler Gisondo (Superman) is reportedly playing the Goblin’s human best friend.
The mysterious project sounds a bit like films including A Gnome Named Gnorm and more recently, Frankie Freako, though it’s important to note that it’s not billed as a horror movie.
Deadline details, “After [Mikalson] hatched the idea to make an outrageous buddy comedy about a goblin, using a practical puppet and operating outside the Hollywood system, his script quickly got him a rep team. While others might have eyed the raunchy comedy as a writing sample or planned to wait to see the micro-budget version Mikalson has been directing in Kentucky, A24 jumped all over it. The hot indie essentially has agreed to finance a full feature.”
“There was a lot of interest, but A24 came with what Mikalson really wanted, after spending all his money crafting the puppet title character: they acquired the movie and agreed to let him make it with a significantly increased budget than what he had left after creating the anatomically correct title character,” Deadline’s report goes on to explain.
What does the titular Goblin actually look like? Well, a cake that Mikalson had whipped up for his reps might give us our first look at what to expect. Deadline explains the photo you’ll see down below, “Take a look at the cake he commissioned with Marc Gravelle at Cake Art in West Hollywood, to present to his reps as thanks for making his dream come true.”
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