Trivia / Godzilla (1998)

• Approval of God: Shortly before his passing in 1997, Godzilla creator Tomoyuki Tanaka met up with Patrick Tatopoulos and liked the latter's design for Godzilla. What Toho crews and executives have thought of the film since is another story...
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Matthew Broderick signed on without having read the completed screenplay.
• Breakaway Pop Hit: Its soundtrack album (featuring The Wallflowers' cover of David Bowie's "Heroes", Jamiroquai's UK #1 single "Deeper Underground", Rage Against the Machine's "No Shelter" and Puff Daddy and Jimmy Page's "Come with Me") flew off the shelves.
• Creator Backlash:
  • In later years, Dean Devlin stated that he "screwed up" his Godzilla, mainly blaming the script that he co-wrote with Roland Emmerich as the source of the film's failure. Devlin additionally emphasized "two flaws" that he believed hurt the film, stating, "The first is we did not commit to anthropomorphizing Godzilla - meaning we did not decide if he was a heroic character, or a villainous character. We made the intellectual decision to have him be neither and just simply an animal trying to survive." Devlin said the decision was a "big mistake" and revealed the second flaw of the film was "...deciding to exposit the characters' background in the middle of the film rather than in the first act (where we always do). At the time we told the audience who these characters were, they had already made their minds up about them and we could not change that perception". Devlin concluded by stating, "These were 2 serious mistakes in the writing of the film, and I take full responsibility." It says a lot when he went to see Godzilla (2014), a much Truer to the Text version of the character, he even hopes the Legendary Pictures version succeeds where his fails.
  • Downplayed with Matthew Broderick. While conceding that he was miscast for the role, Broderick still defended the film, noting that it made a decent profit and enjoyed working with Roland Emmerich.
  • Hank Azaria expressed his disappointment with working on the film, citing its failure to boost his career profile and how he fell sick repeatedly from shooting in rainy exteriors. He went on to declare that Godzilla became the "poster child" for everything wrong with Hollywood tentpole movies.
  • Producer Rob Fried, who helped acquire the Godzilla rights for TriStar Pictures, called Sony's management the worst cases of executive incompetence in his career. Fried went on to say "They took a jewel and turned it into dust."
• Creator's Apathy: Roland Emmerich admitted that he did not like the original Godzilla movies - he only agreed to the project after being promised to be able to do what ever he wanted with the series. This was in contrast to the film's original director, Jan de Bont, who grew up a fan of the character. Emmerich has since expressed regret in taking the job.
• Creator Killer:
  • In the following weeks prior to the film's release day, Sony had Trendmasters not reveal the monster's design and had them withheld merchandise until after the film premiered. The movie did not do so well, and many of their toys were unsold as a result (one analyst made the memorable comment "A lot of screaming plastic lizards are gonna go unsold"). This ended up affecting Trendmasters' other Godzilla toyline projects, including the line for Godzilla: The Series, which was supposed to have a line (and a commercial was produced) before retailers like Wal-Mart declined to sell them. This, combined with other failures (such as toylines based on Battlefield Earth and Lost in Space), ultimately led to Trendmasters' closure a few years later. The irony of all this is that creating toys based on the original Toho Godzilla is what ultimately put them on the map; the King of Monsters giveth, and the King of Monsters taketh away.
  • Dean Devlin, who had been Roland Emmerich's writing partner for much of The '90s, wouldn't write another film for eighteen years. He remained successful as a television producer, however.
• Dear Negative Reader: Dean Devlin aggressively defended the movie on internet message boards, at times telling the Godzilla fans "to hell with you" if they had a negative opinion over it. The official Godzilla message board was shut down soon thereafter due to all the heated arguing. Years later, Devlin has admitted to recognizing the movie's faults and apologized to the fans in various interviews.
• Defictionalization: A subspecies of marine iguana was named Amblyrhynchus cristatus godzilla in 2017, with the study that recognized it specifically mentioning the 1998 version of Godzilla for the name's basis, referencing this incarnation's iguana origin.
• Disowned Adaptation: Infamously so. Most of the original Toho producers and crews didn't like it, with Godzilla's suit actor, Kenpachiro Satsuma, walking out of the movie. Came to the point that "Zilla" showed up in Godzilla: Final Wars to be quickly killed off.
• Enforced Method Acting: Matthew Broderick's terrified reaction to the baby Godzilla bashing its head through the elevator near the climax was genuine. In the Japanese-only "The Art of Godzilla" by creature designer Patrick Tatopoulos, it was because the puppeteers had mistimed the doors closing. The baby Godzilla had already had computer reactions programmed into it, and "could care less if the puppeteers mistakenly closed the doors early - it went through the steel-framed aluminum doors, ripping them apart as if they were made out of paper!"
• Executive Meddling:
  • Toho did not allow Godzilla to eat anyone. The director made a work-around with the offsprings of Godzilla doing so, and Godzilla himself is seen trying and failing to eat the protagonists in the film. The scene where he destroys an Apache helicopter with his jaws does not count as "eating" since he's shown to clearly attacking.
  • According to the original director, Jan de Bont, a big part why the first script was scrapped and the film proposal ultimately rejected by Sony was not just due to the budget, but because studios didn't like the more traditional designs and story that the writers came up with as they didn't believe it would be marketable to a worldwide audience. Emmerich's script was approved partly because it went in a completely different direction and attitude than other Godzilla films.
  • Sony telling Trendmasters to withheld merchandise because they wanted to give the monster a big reveal once the film came out, and they produced a lot of toys for the film, including variants of Godzilla figures. Even ReSaurus, a popular puppet company, were part of the big secret, since they even made several Godzilla hand puppets, and bigger versions had a soundbyte installed. This ultimately lead to the failure of the toyline due to the film's failure, and Trendmasters closed their doors.
• Franchise Killer: An unusual example; The only other American Godzilla venture before 2014 was the relatively-decent animated show that followed this film. Ironically, it actually helped save the Japanese franchise. Toho intended to retire Godzilla after Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, at least until the series' 50th anniversary. But after seeing how badly this movie performed, Toho brought Godzilla back one year later in Godzilla 2000.
• Genre-Killer: This movie put the movie monster genre outside of Japan and Europe in a niche for a while.
• In Memoriam: The film was dedicated to the memory of Tomoyuki Tanaka, one of the "Fathers of Godzilla" and the series producer who passed away in 1997.
• Lying Creator: When illustrations and models of Godzilla's design leaked in late 1997 to overwhelming negative reception from Godzilla fans, Dean Devlin claimed that they were fake designs that had been created as a precaution. Unfortunately for these fans, when the film came out the next year, it would be apparent that the leaked designs were indeed real.
• Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: Jean Reno dubbed himself in the French version.
• Not Screened for Critics: In this case the reason was because the production of special effects shots was running extremely behind schedule (they were only completed two days before the film's theatrical release), not because the studio or filmmakers thought they had a terrible product on their hands. The fact that the film was poorly received afterwards anyway is more or less coincidental, but it did mean they had absolutely no time to fix the movie in response to criticism.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends:
  • This film has inspired rumours that this version was retroactively renamed "Zilla". While subsequent versions of the monster are now officially named "Zilla", the 1998 incarnation of the monster and Godzilla: The Series incarnations are still both officially named "Godzilla". The rumor likely spread after Godzilla: Final Wars featured the version of the monster named "Zilla" after director Ryuhei Kitamura stated that the monster "took the "God" out of Godzilla". For the record, while the monsters are of the same species, Godzilla '98 and Zilla are two separate individuals and the 1998 film (and cartoon spin-off) exist in their own continuity.
  • This film also inspired rumors that Toho absolutely hates the 1998 Godzilla. This, however, is untrue. While many people working for the company have expressed their own individual dislikes of the film (including suit actor Kenpachiro Satsuma walking out of a screening of the film stating "It's not Godzilla"), the company as a whole's view towards Zilla has been neutral to fairly positive. Plus, given that the film was a box-office hit in its initial release and Toho continues to get royalties for every cable TV showing, DVD, Blu-Ray, or digital download purchase, it wouldn't make sense for them to hate something that makes them a profit. The backlash against the film didn't stop Toho from returning fire with Godzilla 2000 the very next year.
  • Another rumor inspired by this film is that TriStar Pictures originally wanted to use King Ghidorah and Mothra, but were unable to due to Toho refusing to give them the rights to the monsters. In reality, Toho was perfectly willing to let TriStar use either monster, but required separate licensing fees for each. Due to budget reasons, TriStar ultimately decided to have Godzilla (and his offspring) be the only monsters in the film.
• Promoted Fanboy: Zig-Zagged. Matthew Broderick stated he was a fan of the series. This movie however seems to have changed his mind after feeling miscasted.
• Saved from Development Hell: When the film was first conceived in 1990, James Cameron was originally offered the chance to direct. When he passed, Tim Burton was connected for a few years, with Joe Johnston's name bandied about for some time also. Paul Verhoeven was going to direct but he passed on the project. Then Jan de Bont was attached and set to direct with Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt starring, but his budget for the film, estimated at $150 million, was higher than the studio was willing to pay. After he was let go, Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin came in. Jan de Bont was disappointed because, unlike Emmerich, he was a fan of the character. de Bont would later criticize Sony since Emmerich's film would go over budget and be more expensive than the film he proposed.
• Screwed by the Network: Rob Fried, who helped acquire the rights for TriStar, was angered how the studio handled the property, stating:
  The Sony executive team that took over Godzilla was one of the worst cases of executive incompetence I have observed in my twenty year career. One of the golden assets of our time, which was hand-delivered to them, was managed as poorly and ineptly as anybody can manage an asset. They took a jewel and turned it into dust.
• Spoiled by the Merchandise: At the insistence of Roland Emmerich, the marketing team did everything they could to avoid this, though a few images were leaked online prior to the film's release to overwhelmingly negative reception from Godzilla fans. To add further insult to injury, there efforts to keep Godzilla's appearance a secret prior to the film's release ended up backfiring spectacularly, as forcing companies to hold off on selling merchandise until the film was released ended with a lot of merchandise going unsold as a result of critical backlash against the film.
• Star-Derailing Role: Maria Pitillo was supposed to land her big breakthrough role to major audiences with this film after having supporting roles in various popular '90s films (Chaplin, True Romance, Natural Born Killers), but her performance received lots of criticisms for being one of the reasons why it failed to resonate. She only made one other major film (After Sex) before mostly limiting herself to television (including a recurring role in Providence) and pretty much retired just a few short years later.
• Stillborn Franchise: TriStar planned to produce a trilogy of Godzilla films upon acquiring the license for Godzilla in 1992. Roland Emmerich had considered using the Monster Island concept from the Toho films with the intention of creating something wild, as well as including six or seven monsters, stating, "We'll probably come up with other monsters because we don't want to tie ourselves too much to certain things". Prior to the 1998 film's release, Sony felt confident enough with the film's potential box office success that they paid Toho $5 million for sequel rights, which guaranteed them to produce a second film within five years after the release of the first film, so long as it was in active development. Dean Devlin had confirmed plans for a trilogy, stating, "We have a Godzilla trilogy in mind. The second one is remarkably different from the first one, and if it's embraced, a third one would make a whole lot of sense. I don't see us doing more than three, but I would love to finish out telling the story."
  • Emmerich and Devlin commissioned a treatment from Tab Murphy titled Godzilla 2. The sequel would have involved the surviving offspring battling a giant insect in Sydney. However, the studio abandoned plans for sequels due to a lack of enthusiasm from fans, audiences, theater owners, and licensees and Emmerich and Devlin left due to budget disputes. Devlin stated, "They wanted to tailor it budget-wise, so it didn't make sense for us creatively." Devlin stated that they left the film with an open-ending in case the film's success allowed them to return for sequels. Despite Emmerich's comments that Sony was "absolutely ready" to produce a sequel, he later revealed that he advised the studio to not produce a sequel, stating, "It's so strange because people expected it to be the biggest thing ever, then it only did well. They are disappointed, and you have to defend yourself". Sony had considered a reboot with the new series disassociating itself from the 1998 film.
  • Sony was so confident about the series that, according to the defunct news website Monster Zero, there were tentative ideas for a third movie as well. In this one, the Godzilla population would have drastically exploded, to the point where humanity is at risk of extinction. What's left of mankind must band together to stop them.
• Technology Marches On:
  • Animal is praised as an amazing Intrepid Reporter for being the only person to get footage of Godzilla during his first appearance (extremely crappy film tape footage at that). Nowadays, that notion is utterly ridiculous, since nearly everyone has a miniature HD camera in their pocket and the vastly increased prevalence of houses with webcams; there would've been a hundred videos of Godzilla's attack within the first hour (just think about how much footage there was of 9/11, and that was before smartphones).
  • Audrey is able to steal Nick's classified information because it's just a VHS tape on his desk labelled "TOP SECRET". VHS tapes became a discredited media storage format about a decade later (the last VHS company ceased production in 2016), and those files would just be sent over email or on a USB.
  • Similarly, Nick, Philippe, Animal, and Audrey are stuck in Madison Square Garden without a way to contact the outside world because the phone lines are busy, forcing them to get creative. Nowadays, they could've just called with a cellphone. The part with Nick finding a way to communicate with O'Neal by throwing him the taxi's identification number to find its radio frequency would also be unnecessary for the same reason.
• Those Two Actors: For some reason, the movie sees Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, and Nancy Cartwright, all actors from The Simpsons, in live action roles as co-workers.
• Throw It In!: That shot of lightning hitting one of the antenna of the World Trade Center was real; they happened to catch it while filming a wide angle shot of Manhattan and knew they had to keep it.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original script for the movie had Godzilla being far more like his Japanese self and he was supposed to fight a shape-shifting monster called the Gryphon. Due to the financial success of Independence Day, however, TriStar decided that they wanted their own disaster movie to compete, and so hired Roland Emmerich to direct.
  • After that, Godzilla was actually going to battle King Ghidorah. However, at the time, Toho sold the rights to kaiju from the series separately, so Tristar would have had to pay even more money. Since the budget was already astronomical, that was out of the question.
  • Briefly in conceptualization, the film executives asked for a possible sidekick character for Godzilla (so that they could have a protagonist monster that they would always have the rights to and possibly spin a spin-off franchise from). Understandably, both the director at the time and Toho shot the idea down quickly.
  • Concept art showed Godzilla using the Atomic Breath, which was completely absent due to Emmerich and Devlin seeing it as "too unrealistic" much to the disappointment of fans ^note this was another reason that would lead to the film's horrid reception with the fans. Had the Atomic Breath been included, it would have saved the monster's reputation with the fanbase.
  • At some point Godzilla was planned to walk through Times Square and damage several of its famous screens, but the scene was apparently cut over the course of various script rewrites, leaving the iconic Square absent.
  • Here is one of the ideas the filmmakers had for a sequel.
  • The monster originally would have had the ability to change its color like a chameleon. Though the idea was scrapped, hints of the concept survive in the finished film in which the monster's exact hue does vary depending on the scene's lighting.
  • Following the success of Twister, Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt were considered for the leads.
  • Matthew Broderick's wife Sarah Jessica Parker auditioned for Audrey. Jennifer Aniston, Parker Posey, Winona Ryder and Renée Zellweger were also considered.
  • Roland Emmerich considered Dick Van Dyke for Mayor Ebert.

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