Much-hyped, to the point where the first promo trailer for the movie arrived a year before its release (back when that wasn’t really a thing), 1998’s Godzilla movie nonetheless stumbled somewhat. It made money, certainly, but it wasn’t the Jurassic Park-sized juggernaut that Sony at the time was hoping for.
The movie was put together by writer/producer Dean Devlin and director Roland Emmerich. And Devlin has been chatting about where the film went wrong in a new interview.
“I think part of the biggest problem was that I pushed Roland into doing the movie because I was a huge Godzilla fan”, Devlin admitted.
“I grew up with Godzilla and it wasn’t something that Roland had grown up with. He didn’t have a giant passion about Godzilla. He was able to find a story with me that he could get passionate about and he was passionate about the movie we made, but this was his take on it as opposed to honouring the Godzilla legacy in a way that would make the people who loved Godzilla happy”.
Devlin added that their idea for Godzilla, ultimately, wasn’t “fulfilling”, and Toho would ultimately distance itself and its own Godzilla productions from the movie.
The full piece with Syfy Wire is well worth a read, and can be found here.