Trivia / Godzilla: Final Wars

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• Acting for Two:
  • Minilla and Rodan are both portrayed by Naoko Kamio.
  • Kazuhiro Yoshida plays Gigan and Hedorah.
  • Keizer Ghidorah, Anguirus, and Ebirah are all played by Toshihiro Ogura.
  • In addition to playing Monster X, Motokuni Nakagawa portrays King Caesar.
• Approval of God: Patrick Tatopoulos, who designed the 1998 American Godzilla, was very thrilled to hear that his design made it into an official Toho Godzilla movie...even if it wasn't an impressive showing.
• Box Office Bomb: A budget of $19.5 Million, only grossed $12 million at the box office. Making it both the least attended film of the Millennium era, and the least attended Godzilla film in general since 1975’s Terror of Mechagodzilla.
• Franchise Killer: This movie was intended to be the end of the franchise for a time. That said, with it being a Box Office Bomb, the kaiju genre not being profitable anymore, and the tepid critical reception that hiatus was a lot longer than intended. It ultimately took until the release of Pacific Rim and the 2014 remake for a fire to be lit under the franchise again.
• Milestone Celebration: Was released in time for the 50th anniversary of the franchise.
• Off-the-Shelf FX: Zilla's CGI model was created by scanning Trendmasters' Ultimate Godzilla released as part of their Godzilla (1998) toyline.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends:
  • The rumour that this Godzilla is actually Junior. This rumor likely began due to the film's opening credits using the final scene in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah in which an adult Junior can be seen in silhouette. However, this was likely only used for dramatic effect. Likewise, another rumor states that the Final Wars Godzilla was originally going to be an adult Junior but the idea was scrapped during development. So far, there are no statements from Ryuhei Kitamura or any of the film's production team that neither confirm not deny this claim. In fact, the Final Wars Godzilla is its own incarnation of the monster.
  • Bagan was rumored to have been cut from the film and even had a video from 2012 claiming to be evidence. However, this was quickly debunked as the footage in question was actually from one of Toho's Toku shows called Super Star Fleet Sazer-X, and had absolutely nothing to do with the Godzilla franchise or any supposed cut footage of Bagan.
• Production Posse: This movie marked the fourth time Ryuhei Kitamura, Tak Sakaguchi, and Hideo Sakaki has worked together, after Versus, Alive, and Aragami. Additionally, coming a year after Kitamura directed the cutscenes for Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, Yoji Shinkawa was brought in as one of the film's production designers.
• Prop Recycling: The Mothra puppet is the exact same one used in Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S..
• What Could Have Been:
  • Kiryu, Gorosaurus, and KING GHIDORAH were all slated to appear in the film. Unfortunately, none of them made the cut, and Kiryu and Gorosaurus were replaced by the Gotengo and Zilla^note Kiryu's getting cut made complete sense as it would have made short work of the Xillian's Kaiju army by pairing it up with Godzilla, and on top of that it was in the last 2 Godzilla films, meaning that it would have been the same suit from Tokyo SOS much like the Mothra puppet. Gorosaurus likewise was cut because Toho has just got the rights to Tristar Godzilla back, while King Ghidorah would ultimately get repurposed as Monster X/Keizer Ghidorah.
  • The original idea was to have Godzilla be none other than the adult Junior (which was hinted at during the end of the intro) and his final opponent was to be Destoroyah, this idea was cut due to the fact that Junior was never considered a threat by humans which made no sense for him to be an enemy to humanity (which would have muddled the continuity with Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah) and thus an original Godzilla unrelated to Junior was created.
  • Concept art exists for Oodako, indicating that he was considered at one point.
  • Godzilla was to actually kill Rodan, Anguirus, and King Caesar, but this was ultimately changed to him sparing them as a nod to his friendly relations with them in the past. Also helping was the fact that the suits were needed for publicity stills and other uses; blowing them up would have been quite an expensive move.
  • The Captain Gordon character was originally Takaki Aso portrayed by Akira Nakao in the screenplay written by Shogo Tomiyama and Wataru Mimura before Ryuhei Kitamura and his writer came in and completely reworked it once Don Frye was cast as the present-day Gordon.
  • Frye wasn't the first choice for Gordon. The original idea was to cast Jean Reno in this role but he was unavailable just like the next picks, Christopher Lambert and even Don Johnson.
  • There were hopes for a full theatrical release in the USA, distributed by Sony. But negotiations with Toho went south, so the film only saw limited screenings in the country.
  • The original intention for Zilla was to have a longer, less one-sided fight with Godzilla but the runtime and budget constraints wouldn't allow it. In the director's own words "...[I] made the decision that if I cannot do a full round, let’s just end it quick so that at least it gets a big laugh."

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