The second film in the Warner Brothers panel is Godzilla. Last year, Godzilla was in Hall H, but with very little information. The only film footage we saw was some destruction, and then a misty sky, with a Godzilla silhouette, and the iconic Godzilla roar. This year, Godzilla had a lot more to discuss in Hall H of Comic-Con.
The first film in the Warner Brothers Panel was Seventh Son. You can read about it here.
Chris Hardwick continues the Legendary panel. He begins with re-showing the footage from last year.
After the footage, Chris Hardwick brings the Godzilla panelists to the stage, Gareth Edwards, the director of the film, followed by cast members Elizabeth Olsen, Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass 2), and Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad).
Hardwick begins with talking with Gareth Edwards, and we find out shooting for the film finished two days before this panel. Gareth talks about how supportive Legendary as been, and talks about how happy he is with how the film turned out. Jokingly, Brian Cranston jumps in to call him out as a “suck up”.
Hardwick moves onto Elizabeth. Elizabeth describes the film as feeling “small” and “creative”. She says it felt like an independent film. Aaron Taylor-Johnson describes the film as being an intimate film.
Hardwick moves to Bryan Cranston, asking if he watched the old films. Cranston is “offended”, jokingly saying that Hardwick is calling him old. He describes Godzilla as his favorite monster when he was a kid. He talks about not knowing if this was a good movie for him to be in at first, and he talks about how he was asked to be the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz and felt that would be a mistake for him.
Bryan Cranston then praises Gareth’s movie Monsters, and seems to feel Godzilla is an extension of that.
Gareth Edwards provides some tidbits about the film, and we learn that the people we follow in the movie are not at the heart of the destruction. This sounds like it may have a Cloverfield-esce vibe to it. He of course is limited in what he can say, as the studio doesn’t want to give anything away.
Hardwick talks about how important this film will be, as people are wanting, “The Godzilla movie of our time”.
Gareth then goes into a story of trying to keep the film a secret. The movie was filmed in Canada, and they used a code name for the film, which was Nautilus. When crossing immigration, they had to ask their nature for visiting, and Gareth describes his interaction with border patrol. Upon asking Gareth what he was doing in Canada, Gareth gave the code name and described the film as a small thing. Gareth explains that the officer must have looked him up, and called him out on directing Godzilla. The border patrol officer is sure to tell him that he better not, “F–k it up!” and proceeded for 20 minutes to tell Gareth Edwards how to proceed with the film. A good listen if you can find the clip on YouTube. Funny enough, Elizabeth Olson reveals she had told the officers the real name of the movie, because she was freaking out about lying to government officials.
Hardwick then proceeds to explain that we have something special to see, and Brian Cranston begins to unzip his pants. Hardwick offers him $1000 to actually do it, but thankfully Bryan Cranston decides to not go through with it. The panel then moves into audience questions. The first question asks about the difficulty in keeping to the original while making it a unique film. Gareth Edwards says he felt the pressure was mostly from himself. Gareth then talks about how he feels this movie is his artistic film and “blockbuster”.
The panel wraps up with some footage of Godzilla, and we get a big reveal. There is another large creature in the film, insect-like, which I think most people would agree is Mothra. Godzilla and this new creature have some massive battle scenes throughout the city, creating tons of destruction.
Unfortunately, there is still no trailer available online yet to view, but suffice it to say, it does look really good. Godzilla will be hitting theaters May 16th, 2014.
Up next was 300: Rise of an Empire. But before that panel was brought out, there was a special treat brought just for Comic-Con. Curious to know what it was?
