Godzilla fans are feasting right now. Late last year, Apple TV+ premiered the critically acclaimed series Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters, and the theatrical release of the Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One is soon to be followed by the arrival of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. It's a time for devotees to celebrate – and that's very much the energy in a new IMAX featurette featuring directors Adam Wingard and Takashi Yamazaki.
With Godzilla and Godzilla movies being in vogue in a big way at the moment, IMAX brought together the directors of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire and Godzilla Minus One for an intimate, bilingual chat about the beloved titan. In the video, they discuss their personal history with the character, discuss his extreme longevity in pop culture, and more. They're fanhoods are boldly worn on their sleeves, and it's wonderful. Check out the video below.
Anyone who even just watches the trailers for Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire and Godzilla Minus One will note that the two movies are tremendously different, and it's interesting to watch the conversation between Adam Wingard and Takashi Yamazaki and understand how their individual influences took them in different directions with the character.
Speaking about the birth of his love for Godzilla, Wingard explained that he became a fan as he recognized the personality that the monster demonstrated during his Showa era adventures battling with and against other monsters:
My love for Godzilla started whenever I was probably about six or seven years old – the Showa era Godzillas – like the ones from the late 60s/early 70s – I remember were playing on daytime television and as a kid it was just it impressed upon me in a big way because I already loved dinosaurs and things like that, but the thing I liked about Godzilla and Mothra and all those characters is that is that they were real characters. And so those sequences in the original Godzilla movies where you're really just with the monsters and they have their own dynamics really spoke to me a lot as a kid.
Takashi Yamazaki also became a fan of Godzilla through airings of the film on television, but his fascination grew akin to how horror fans get ingratiated into the genre. He says via translation,
When I was small, whenever a live broadcast or baseball game was canceled by rain, Godzilla films played on TV instead. And they called it ‘umbrella shows.’ Back then, my dad loved baseball, so he always wished for good weather while I wished for it to rain so I could watch Godzilla. When I watched it for the first time, I remember it as a terrifying experience, but I couldn’t help but be attracted by it at the same time. The most surprising thing to me was that there are people who make monster films for a living. I thought, ‘This is definitely my dream job.’
In the conversation, Adam Wingard explained how the diversity of storytelling in Godzilla's history is a big part of what has allowed the titan to remain fresh for 70 years and never feel like a stale big screen presence:
I think Godzilla's been so popular over the years because I mean, you can just take Godzilla Minus One and my film, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, and these two films couldn't be more tonally different from each other. I think that's what's so cool about Godzilla, is that metaphorically, tonally, he's just very versatile in terms of what he can mean and represent in the movies.
Yamazaki, in turn, notes that their individual roots with the characters can be seen in the movies that they made. In the filmmaker's words, he sees the "psychedelic Godzilla" in the work that Adam Wingard has done, but Godzilla Minus One is more rooted in the horror of the monster from the original 1954 film – which notably utilized the titular titan as a metaphor for the destruction caused by atomic weaponry during World War II:
It mirrors the social climate of the era each film was made, which I believe is the biggest reason why Godzilla cold maintain its popularity for such a long time. ‘I want to see the terrifying, strong Godzilla’ is where I started. I couldn’t help but that that direction when making it. However, the fun and psychedelic Godzilla from Showa Era that you are saying is also an important element of Godzilla. Because you, Adam, have inhered that side of this character, we can take the totally opposite direction and together, we are maintaining the wide spectrum of this Godzilla IP, even now.
Godzilla Minus One has not yet made its way to the home video market – either via digital or physical media markets – but fans will be able to see the MonsterVerse insanity of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire very soon, as the film will be in theaters next Friday, March 25. It's one of the biggest titles in the early months of the 2024 Movie Release Calendar, so buy your tickets now, and be sure to stay tuned here on CinemaBlend in the coming weeks for more news and features as well as interviews with the movie's director and the outstanding cast (including Rebecca Hall and Dan Stevens).
