The latest news about the monsters inspired by Kong and popularized by Godzilla, Gamera, and Mothra.
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| With a Movie Camera in Tow a Soldier walks among Destruction |
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| Godzilla 2014 Director, Gareth Edwards, does commentary on new Godzilla Trailer |
Two days ago, the full trailer for Godzilla roared emphatically into our lives. Today, Empire unveils a very special trailer breakdown for it, featuring the director of the film, Gareth Edwards, guiding you though the jaw-dropping footage you've seen.
Discover what Edwards himself makes of fans' guesswork - "Is that a tentacle holding a bomb?" - and try to make your own version of the roar (provided you have a double bass and a leather glove handy). Whether you're a die-hard fan of Toho Studios' finest, or just a passing movie lover, you'll want to watch this - and at the loudest volume possible.
SRC: Empire Online
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| Godzilla 2014 director, Gareth Edwards, announces a comic book prequel to the movie |
In May 2014, audiences will witness the epic rebirth of the King of the Monsters as Legendary and Warner Bros. bring Godzilla to the big screen. To pave the way for the iconic creature’s return, Legendary Comics is proud to present the official graphic novel Godzilla: Awakening. This 72-page story, set decades before the film, is co-written by Max Borenstein (screenwriter of the new Godzilla) and Greg Borenstein.
Delve into an incredible mystery, generations in the making. At the dawn of the atomic age, humanity awakens lifeforms beyond imagination, unleashing monumental forces of nature. This explosive, larger-than-life adventure is the perfect way for fans to experience the new Godzilla before seeing it in theaters.
Godzilla: Awakening is illustrated by Eric Battle (X-Men, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman), Yvel Guichet (Pacific Rim: Tales from Year Zero, Superboy Annual, End of Nations), Alan Quah (Rage, The Vampire Diaries, Anywhere) and Lee Loughridge (Batman Adventures, Arkham Asylum: Living Hell, Marvel Zombies Return), and features cover art by Arthur Adams (Godzilla, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Uncanny X-Men).
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| How does Godzilla's atomic breath work |
Shock: The film is said to be more grounded and “real” so how to you plausibly handle his creation, his atomic breath and other elements?
Edwards: It was important to me to make it as believable as possible and with all of those elements you’ve mentioned, they’re in the film but I tried to put them in the film where they’re not so fantastical that you don’t believe it. Hopefully, the only big buy the audience has to make – and I believe there can only be one buy – is that giant creatures can exist. Beyond that, we try to make it as realistic as possible. Throughout the franchise, there’s consistently been these elements related to Godzilla and they’re in this film, but it was about making it feel natural in our film. I can’t go into much more details. There is a nuclear element in the movie.
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| Ouch! (Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures) |
It's Godzilla's name on the marquee, yet Edwards didn't want to humanize him or give him too much personality.
"To me, he's like a force of nature, like the wrath of God or vengeance for the way we've behaved," Edwards says. "If this really happened, it would be like Sept. 11.
"I want it to be epic. I want to get the hairs on the back of your neck up."
Coming from Monsters, in which he designed — as cost-efficiently as possible — a quasi-futuristic setting of alien creatures taking over Mexico, Edwards is reveling in the big-budget filmmaking that Godzilla offers him.
"It's the closest thing to being a god as I think there is in terms of a job you could have," he says. "You picture something one day and draw it, and the next day, it's physical and there in front of you no matter how insane."
In addition to the original movie, the Monsterland conceit of the 1968 Godzilla flick Destroy All Monsters also plays into Edwards' film, with its exploration of mankind having to deal with a reality full of huge, deadly behemoths — the director teases that there is more than just Godzilla smashing around.
"I've just got a secret fantasy — well, it's not very secret anymore — about living in a world where there's fantastical things like giant creatures and what it would really be like and trying to take it seriously," he says.
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| Speculation continues to heat up for Godzilla 2014 |
How did you approach the effects for Godzilla?
Gareth Edwards: I tried not to view them as effects and go “Ok. This really happened. There really are giant monsters. What would be the best story to tell, that we can think of?”, and it always involves humans. So you come up with those characters, and try to create that story. I don’t separate the two in my mind. You just picture the movie. What was so refreshing was that we would shoot scenes that sometimes had a creature in them, sometimes didn’t, and we’d desperately try to make it work from an emotional point of view, on its own. You guys had the advantage of this, but we’d go in the evening, and kind of review scenes with the digital effects company, and they’d start putting the special effects in, and I’d go “Oh my god. I totally forgot that this whole other layer was going on with this.” We were painstakingly worried about the characters, and their journey, and suddenly, on top of that, there’s this spectacle that’s going to be invented in the whole film. It makes you feel really good, because we wanted to get it right from the character side of things.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson: The thing that I found really interesting around a film that’s a special effects movie - my idea was that you’re going to be in a studio filming these green screen monsters. There was, maybe, a couple of days of that, but the majority of time we would go film on location. It gave it just a whole other depth, and you forget about it. We’d be on location with destruction everywhere, people were injured, and it came to life. It felt natural and realistic. The way we shot it, it’s just kind of with you on this journey, from our perspective point of view. When you do get a glimpse of Godzilla, you’re looking up from a car window, or from a military helicopter, so you really feel, as an audience, that you’re totally involved in it. That you’re on this mad roller coaster journey with us.
Elizabeth Olsen: It’s kind of funny to go “Ok. So in that corner up there is this thing. Is it like a unicorn, or like a spider?” It’s like you’re playing hot lava as a kid, or something. You’re trying to go deep into your imagination, like “Yeah, that’s a monster! It’s going to kill me unless I run fast!” So it’s fun.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson: There were times as well that it’s hard to get the imagination of something, but it is a frightening prospect. We would have a scene where we’d see something happen from one of the creatures and Gareth would play something on the microphone so we’d get the sound of Godzilla, or somebody playing around with the special effects. That was really great, to kind of hear something. You’re envisioning it through your consciousness, and then you’re hearing something through the giant speakers around you. Sometimes he would do it without you knowing it, and it would give a totally different layer.
Gareth Edwards: It was on my iPhone. I would desperately try to get to “this clip” with “this sound” and go “That’s not it. That’s not it. That’s not it. “ and they’d go “You’re wasting camera time” and I’d go “I gotta find that noise!”.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson: There was one time where it was, like, a walrus meets a tiger, meets a hippo farting. [Laughs] It was so bizarre…
Elizabeth, can you tell us about the character you play, and whether she is suited or unsuited to face what she is facing?
Elizabeth Olsen: I feel like my character’s role serves a purpose in the hands on interaction of chaos in the city, and how you deal with that, as well as having a child who needs to not be part of the chaos. I think that’s the perspective you get, and what ends up happening after these things occur, and there’s an overflowing hospital, and people have to get from point A to point B, so that’s the practical part of it. It references any time some sort of natural disaster happens in a city. There’s a real truth to it, as opposed to a fantastical thing.
Because Godzilla is such a legendary creature, and on top of that, this film is highly action driven, what were some of the biggest challenges on the set of this film?
Bryan Cranston: Getting Godzilla to come out of his trailer. He was an ass. He was a real a--hole. [Laughs] He’d come out, he would eat all of the food on craft services, he would wreck everything, but boy, when the cameras rolled… boy he was good! That’s why they keep making Godzilla movies. [Laughs]
