If you read our 100 Most Anticipated Films of 2014 feature, and you should, you’ll know that the only tentpoles that made it into the top 25 were Christopher Nolan‘s “Interstellar,” “Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes” from director Matt Reeves and the new “Godzilla” by filmmaker Gareth Edwards. Edwards impressed with his low-budget monster movie “Monsters” in 2010, but taking such a gigantic leap seemed like it could potentially be biting off more than he could chew. But given everything we’ve seen so far, “Godzilla” looks great, plausible, intriguing, even exciting. In short, we’re borderline enthusiastic for a studio tentpole (and given last year’s weak summer, you can probably understand our skepticism).
Edwards recently discussed how he got the gig (essentially, by giving a solid pitch during a meeting with Legendary Pictures, though it wasn’t specifically for “Godzilla” at the time).
“The meeting with Legendary [Pictures] went so well… that when I left I photographed their building to remember it, because I thought ‘Oh, something just happened there. I think I’m going to end up doing something with them.’ That was such a great meeting that we had together,” he recalled. “We’re all on the same page of the movies we want to make. But then six months went by and I started working on other things, then suddenly I got an email from my Hollywood agent saying ‘call this number now.’ I went home and called the number at it was my agent and he said ‘Okay, are you sitting down?’ And I said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘just sit down. Ok, so Legendary just called, and they want to know if you’d be interested in directing ‘Godzilla’? And my honest reaction was ‘holy f***.’ Then, they were saying, ‘are you a Godzilla fan?’ because I was silent for awhile. I happened to have had the re-released 1954 version out on my shelf. It was right in front of me, and I was like ‘Yeah, I’m looking at it right now,’ which they were very relieved about.“
Total Film has scored some new photos from the film, which is due May 16th, and Yahoo has unveiled a new poster. We can’t wait to see more. Check out the new visuals below.
