Word: emmerichs
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Devlin and Emmerich approached the project gingerly, having rejected four previous overtures from Sony to take charge of Godzilla. The monster appeared to be unmanageable. Jan De Bont (Speed) tried to tame the beast for a while but gave up after Sony balked at the budget he wanted for a script that had Godzilla battling a shape-shifting beast. James Cameron (Titanic), Tim Burton (Batman) and David Fincher (Alien 3) were among the directors at one time considered to update Godzilla. When Steven Spielberg, who knows from dinosaurs, heard that Devlin and Emmerich were contemplating the movie, he tried...
...unveiled for the Toho board of directors in Tokyo, Lee was stunned. "It was just so different," he says, "so improved." Devlin says he heard of a little more consternation: "'You have to do this in stages! Show them the face first, then show them the body, then...'" But Emmerich was adamant, and they all headed for the Toho boardroom. Says Lee: "It's 15 guys, in increasing age, all looking very stern." When the model was unveiled, there was an audible gasp...
...heart-stopping moment," says Lee, who knew Toho could sink the proposed Godzilla then and there. Some quick talking took place. Says Emmerich: "I told the Japanese guys the biggest difference would be that the creature is very lean because he's very fast. I also told them, 'Guys, we either do it like this, or we don't do it at all. It's your trademark, but if you don't do it this way, I'll go make another movie, and you'll have to find someone else.'" That argument carried some weight: Toho was the Japanese distributor...
...shoot a guy in a heavy-rubber monster suit and film in slow motion to give him some sense of scale." At 20 stories tall, says Devlin, "if you do the math, even if it walked at a gingerly pace, it's covering a lot of territory quickly." Adds Emmerich: "Godzilla can outrun any taxi, and that was the core idea for the movie. No one can catch it. Dean and I realized we could make a different Godzilla, a movie about a hunt, about hide-and-seek...
...maybe not as campy as all that. After watching the original 1954 Japanese Gojira, Devlin and Emmerich came away with newfound respect for the old film. "It was not meant to be campy at all," says Devlin. "In fact, it was a mighty dramatic movie. Surprisingly, the special effects, done in the rain, in black-and-white, shot at night, were done very well, even by today's standards...