It's been a while since I've done a "Blast from the Past" article, so I thought I would create another one here.
(For the previous articles go here).
I found this great archived article (dated sometime in 1997) that talks about the eager plans Columbia TriStar/Sony had with their "Godzilla
" movie.I love finding such things because it's great to look back in hindsight...see what paths were taken...and compare them against what could have been done.
In this case it's the news that their upcoming "Godzilla" movie was going to be so successful it would generate a gigantic franchise of sequels.
Key highlight is this sentence from the article:
"The goal is to not just sell the movie, but make the monster a retail franchise, like Warner's Batman or Paramount's Star Trek, that will generate sales for many years to come".
So ambitious was Sony that they spent over $125 million creating the film, $50 million more in advertisement, and over $125 million in product tie-ins!
Not to mention all of the free reign given to Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich to make the film anyway they wanted.
Of course once the movie came out the results were disastrous both critically and commercially, and to this day it remains a sore-spot with Toho Studios and die-hard Godzilla fans.
Look, I still admire the fact that both the filmmakers and the studio took a big chance here.
Especially when at the time the only other US released Godzilla film, "Godzilla 1985
", didn't exactly set theaters on fire.They took a chance, gave it all of the resources needed to create a summer blockbuster...when quite honestly something like Godzilla could just have easily gone the way of video...and they lost.
Despite this hiccup it was still popular enough to generate a successful cartoon series, and at least according to Emmerich, still remains his most asked-about film.
And in some sense it proved that a transition to US audiences could still be successful enough to merit another chance with Legendary Pictures (with Godzilla 2014)...so it can't all be bad right?
In any case check out the full article if you want to revisit the world of Godzilla just before the release of this ambitious blockbuster:
thefreelibrary.com: On the Prowl: Sony Hopes to Turn Godzilla into a Marketing Monster
Maybe SONY should've been less gung-ho about a "franchise" and more concerned with making a better film.
ReplyDeleteTrue. So this next film they want to make will somewhat be like the '98 movie's portray of him, rt.....?? And this next movie HAS to tie that baby that hatched at the end of the '98 movie......i mean, come on. Has to tie the last movie into the sequel somehow, right? hope so!! Me and the girlfriend liked the movie and i always has. AND been a fan of Godzilla.....
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