- 2 months ago
Does anyone else remember the insane HYPE of Godzilla 2014? The crazy trailers, the comic con leaks, the sheer anticipation for a brand new Godzilla film, the first in a decade? Well today we thought we’d step back and look at one of the best times to be a Godzilla fan, and look back on the very thing that revived this iconic franchise.
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TVTranscript
00:00You won't believe just how hyped Godzilla 2014 was.
00:05After a decade of, well, nothing,
00:08this film reinvigorated the spark for the king of the monsters that had long been dormant.
00:13But before we get into it, I just wanted to thank those who have donated to our Titans Against Blood
00:17Cancer charity so far.
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00:38Does anyone else remember the insane hype of Godzilla 2014?
00:42The crazy trailers, the comic con leaks, the sheer anticipation for a brand new Godzilla film, the first in a
00:48decade?
00:49Well, today we thought we'd step back and take a look at one of the best times to be a
00:53Godzilla fan
00:53and look back on the very thing that revived this iconic franchise.
01:00To start this video, we have to go back in time over 20 years ago.
01:05All the way back to 2004.
01:09Tony has just released Godzilla Final Wars, just in time for the franchise's 50th anniversary,
01:16where they plan to put the series on hiatus after struggling to perform well at the box office.
01:20However, one man wanted to bring the king of the monsters over to America, the legendary Yoshimitsu Bano,
01:27the director of Godzilla vs. Hedorah.
01:30Bano approached Toho with the idea for a Godzilla IMAX 3D movie.
01:35The original concept was called Godzilla 3D, later Godzilla 3D to the max, and eventually Godzilla vs. Deathler to the
01:44max.
01:44However, this wasn't going to be an ordinary Godzilla film.
01:47It was intended to be a relatively short, spectacular IMAX experience,
01:51where Godzilla would face off against a new monster, Deathler, inspired by Hedorah.
01:59The year is now 2005-2006, and Bano is struggling to find studios to finance the production.
02:05Toho isn't financing the movie, so he has to find someone willing to actually pay for the thing.
02:11The project gradually develops beyond the original short film concept,
02:15with producer Brian Rogers becoming heavily involved.
02:18The story also starts getting bigger, with Godzilla's battle eventually moving across continents,
02:24which is only increasing the already big budget.
02:27However, in 2007, there is a pretty massive turning point,
02:32which will explain once you subscribe and stomp the notification button.
02:35Yes, I'm talking to the 65% of you that aren't subbed.
02:38Do it, or else Godzilla will stomp you tonight.
02:42In 2007, Brian Rogers meets Bano, and the project eventually gets in front of Legendary Pictures.
02:49Legendary becomes interested in making a new American Godzilla film,
02:52and begins working with Bano and Toho.
02:55And this is important because Bano's little IMAX movie is about to evolve into something much, much bigger.
03:01By August 2009, reports emerge that Legendary is negotiating with Toho for a new American Godzilla movie,
03:08with an intended release of around 2012.
03:12Suddenly, Godzilla fans have something they haven't had since 2004,
03:15an actual possibility of a new Godzilla movie.
03:19And this time, it's coming from a major Hollywood studio.
03:23And on March 29th, 2010,
03:25Legendary officially announces that it has acquired the rights to make a new Godzilla movie,
03:30with Warner Bros. co-financing and co-producing.
03:34And Legendary makes a very important promise.
03:37This isn't going to make the same mistakes as 1998.
03:40They wanted Godzilla much closer to the Japanese version.
03:43And at this point, the planned release is 2012.
03:46Of course, fans start going wild,
03:48and come up with their own art for what the King of the Monsters could look like.
03:52Some being radically different,
03:54with probably my favorite being this now iconic one,
03:57where Godzilla almost has these sharp feathers.
03:59It's just awesome.
04:02But in 2010,
04:04Legendary revealed the first promotional poster for the new Godzilla,
04:08with this new, more realistic design.
04:10But still recognizably Godzilla,
04:12unlike the complete redesign in 98.
04:15So fans could breathe a sigh of relief.
04:17And Legendary came with several exciting plans.
04:21The film will use a CGI Godzilla.
04:23Godzilla will use his atomic breath.
04:25He will fight other monsters.
04:27The film will take a more serious approach.
04:30And will be a complete reboot.
04:32With Brian Rogers even comparing their ambitions to what Batman Begins did for Batman,
04:37making it a more grounded reimagining of a series that, at this point,
04:41has seen countless more lighthearted entries.
04:43The hype exploded at this point.
04:46For six years, there's been nothing in the Godzilla space.
04:49And finally, fans have something to look forward to.
04:53And as someone who was very active in the Godzilla community,
04:56seeing it light up with excitement from fans was just monumental.
05:00Legendary then hires David Goyer,
05:01who had worked on Christopher Nolan's Batman films,
05:04to work on the script.
05:05This immediately gets fans excited because people see
05:08the man that worked on Batman Begins is now working on Godzilla.
05:11This is going to be a masterpiece.
05:15Except, Goyer only works in the script for a few weeks,
05:18and ultimately doesn't receive a writing credit.
05:21Eventually, he's replaced by Max Borenstein.
05:24There are even rumors that Guillermo del Toro might direct,
05:27which actually forced him to reveal that,
05:29no, he is not involved in the production.
05:31Which is funny because he went on to make his own kaiju film with Pacific Rim in 2013.
05:37So, fan speculation continues on who will be the director of this massive production.
05:42And then, Legendary finally reveals who will helm the rebooted Godzilla.
05:47Gareth Edwards.
05:48This guy had previously directed Monsters,
05:51a tiny 2010 science fiction movie made for a fraction of what a Godzilla movie would cost.
05:57Edwards was basically an unknown compared to the blockbuster directors people were expecting.
06:01But Monsters demonstrated that he could create enormous creatures and a sense of scale
06:06without constantly throwing them in your face.
06:08And Edwards immediately makes it clear.
06:11He knows what happened in 1998,
06:13and he knows fans are terrified of it happening again.
06:16And as a fan of the originals,
06:17he plans to honor the legacy of the King of the Monsters,
06:21with a darker and grittier film that pulls from the roots of the 1954 original.
06:27Now, fast forward to 2012.
06:30This was supposed to be the release year.
06:32But the movie isn't ready.
06:33The script's being rewritten.
06:35The release date slips.
06:36And fans start to get nervous.
06:39Legendary and Edwards spent a huge amount of time developing this movie,
06:43including creature designs,
06:45concept art,
06:45and pre-visualization.
06:47Which leads to fans worrying about the state of the production.
06:50Could the film be cancelled?
06:51Just like the previous attempts at American Godzilla movies that got far and then faded to nothing.
06:56And then,
06:58Comic-Con 2012 happens.
07:00And it's possibly the biggest moment in the franchise for the past eight years.
07:04Because Legendary shows a teaser that will change everything.
07:09It's dark,
07:10haunting,
07:11mysterious.
07:12We see a ruined city,
07:13flattened by some great conflict.
07:15It featured Oppenheimer's famous speech,
07:18which just adds to the creepy atmosphere.
07:20He knew the world would not be the same.
07:23Making the themes of nuclear horror ever more prevalent.
07:26And then it presents a gigantic dead creature.
07:29And only one thing could have done this.
07:31And then...
07:32The actual Godzilla barely appears,
07:35just shrouded in dust and rubble,
07:37from the ruins of a flattened city.
07:39But the audience goes absolutely insane.
07:42The teaser was made while the film was still in pre-production.
07:45And Edwards himself later said that,
07:47during this period,
07:48he wasn't even sure the movie would actually happen.
07:50But they essentially showed everyone,
07:52trust us,
07:53this is the movie we're making.
07:55What's crazy is they didn't publicly release this teaser.
07:58It was shown privately at Comic-Con,
08:00which meant fans could only try and recreate the preview,
08:03based on second-hand reports.
08:05But this secrecy only added to the hype,
08:07making the fans only crave to see it more.
08:10And they did,
08:11when it was leaked late into 2013.
08:14And fans went nuts.
08:16It was exactly what they wanted from a new Godzilla.
08:19Dark,
08:20mysterious,
08:21and Godzilla,
08:22well,
08:23looked like Godzilla.
08:24And that roar,
08:25sent shivers down their spine.
08:28Now in July 2013,
08:30Legendary brings Godzilla back to Comic-Con.
08:33This time,
08:33they show actual footage from the movie.
08:36The reaction is enormous.
08:38However,
08:39once again,
08:39it's only behind closed doors.
08:42This leads to fans trying to recreate visuals,
08:44like the MUTOs,
08:45which for a while,
08:46people believed looked like this bug thing.
08:49And at this event,
08:50possibly the biggest marketing push yet,
08:53with the Godzilla Encounter,
08:55an elaborate off-site promotional attraction running during Comic-Con in July 2013,
09:01where fans were taken through a recreated Tokyo street,
09:04into a military radiation-controlled area,
09:07and eventually into an office high up in a building.
09:10Then the windows start shaking,
09:12the ground begins to move,
09:14and the stomps get louder and louder.
09:21Until Godzilla himself walks past the window outside.
09:29He then comes back,
09:31and looks directly through the window at the audience,
09:33and roars.
09:37This,
09:37this was just so cool.
09:39When this was leaked,
09:40this drove fans,
09:41and especially me,
09:42absolutely crazy.
09:44This new Godzilla design was just incredible.
09:47It looked so real,
09:48and sounded insane.
09:50We were even starting to see full-body leaks of the design,
09:53through these sculptures,
09:54and though early,
09:55gave us a rough idea of what the final design would look like.
09:58And be it some slight drama regarding the new elephant feat,
10:02fans were incredibly happy with the design.
10:04It's safe to say that at this point,
10:06hype was reaching its boiling point,
10:08and then finally,
10:09December 2013,
10:11the biggest moment in the franchise for nine years.
10:14Gentlemen,
10:15you are being sent in via Halo Jump.
10:19Now I realize not all of you have had hands-on experience.
10:23The first official teaser trailer drops.
10:26And I remember exactly where I was when this trailer dropped,
10:29and I made sure to show it to as many people as possible.
10:32Bryan Cranston.
10:33The destruction,
10:34the scale,
10:35the glimpses at the new monsters,
10:37the escalating tension,
10:38hearing that unrecognizable sound of Godzilla's roar,
10:41and finally,
10:42a proper look at the king of the monsters.
10:45The trailer genuinely brought a tear to my eye.
10:48I was just so excited with what I was being shown.
10:51After years of nothing,
10:52of will it happen,
10:53won't it happen,
10:54we're finally seeing a new Godzilla film for the first time in nearly a decade.
10:59And it's beautiful.
11:01From this,
11:02we got several more previews,
11:03with even more glimpses of the king of the monsters.
11:06Including this simple but unforgettable preview of his ultimate roar.
11:12But the sound waves took the shape of his dorsal plates,
11:16and the goosebumps I got from this,
11:18it's just crazy.
11:20We even got some games for Godzilla 2014.
11:22Yes,
11:23games.
11:24With Strike Zone,
11:25a first person mobile game where you have to escape disaster as you navigate a crumbling San Francisco.
11:31And there was also Smash 3,
11:33which was this match 3 puzzle game that also released on mobile.
11:36Which,
11:37while,
11:37yes,
11:38was a Candy Crush clone,
11:39I'm not ashamed to say I played the hell out of this.
11:43It was just so addictive.
11:45And then there was the main trailer,
11:46which is arguably one of the greatest trailers of the modern era.
11:50And it is gonna send us back to the Stone Age!
11:56The use of the 2001 Space Odyssey music only helped make the tone that much more tangible.
12:01tense.
12:01And it's safe to say it set expectations extremely high,
12:05but could it match them?
12:14And then on May 16th 2014,
12:17Godzilla returns.
12:22After 10 years since Final Wars,
12:25Godzilla finally returns to cinemas.
12:27And the really funny thing is that this movie only exists
12:30because of a bizarre chain of events.
12:32Final Wars ended the franchise,
12:35Bano's planned and then abandoned IMAX movie,
12:37Brian Rogers joins Bano in his venture,
12:40Legendary gets the rights to Godzilla with Warner Bros,
12:42multiple scripts with David Goyer,
12:44and then Max Borenstein,
12:46Gareth Edwards joins the direct,
12:48followed by two years of delays,
12:50the 2012 teaser which was leaked in 2013,
12:53the enormous hype building over years of secrecy and promises
12:56that seemed too good to be true,
12:58and finally 2014,
13:00where Godzilla finally releases.
13:02And Bano,
13:03whose original little IMAX project started this whole process,
13:07is ultimately credited as an executive producer on the finished movie,
13:11alongside Kenji Okuhira.
13:13It's because of him,
13:14that a monsterverse even exists,
13:16and I'm glad that still to this day,
13:18Legendary still credits him for his hard work.
13:21When Godzilla released in May 2014,
13:24it opened to $93.2 million domestically,
13:28which was a huge number.
13:30It was the biggest opening weekend for a Godzilla movie ever,
13:33and at the time,
13:34it was the biggest opening of 2014.
13:37Worldwide,
13:37its opening weekend was around $196 million.
13:40For comparison,
13:42the film had a production budget of roughly $160 million.
13:46So,
13:47this wasn't some cheap monster movie that could make its money back easily.
13:50The immediate reaction from the studio was therefore pretty positive.
13:53It looked like they'd successfully resurrected Godzilla as a major Hollywood franchise.
13:58In fact,
13:59it trended more than any Godzilla film has since,
14:02which is just huge.
14:03Then,
14:04the legs weren't quite as impressive.
14:06The problem was the second weekend.
14:08It dropped by roughly 66%,
14:10with X-Men Days of Future Past arriving,
14:13and taking a big chunk of the audience.
14:15Eventually,
14:16Godzilla ended up making
14:17$200 million domestically,
14:20$328.4 million international,
14:23with about $529 million worldwide.
14:26The 14th biggest film that year.
14:29That does sound enormous,
14:31but there's an important bit of context.
14:33It opened with $93 million,
14:35and finished with only about $201 million domestically.
14:39So,
14:39the opening represented almost half of its entire domestic run.
14:43That's a sign that the initial hype was much stronger than the film's staying power.
14:47Was it considered a disappointment?
14:49Not really.
14:50But it wasn't the monster hit Warner Bros. could have hoped for either.
14:54The film was still profitable though.
14:56Deadline estimated that it generated around $92 million in net profit.
15:00But the expectations had become enormous during those four years of marketing.
15:05The reception was mixed to positive,
15:07rather than universally ecstatic.
15:09Critics generally liked these scale, visuals, atmosphere, and Godzilla himself.
15:14But the human characters and the relatively limited amount of Godzilla screen time
15:17became major talking points.
15:20Fans were excited to see Godzilla after so many years off the screen.
15:24But instead,
15:25they got a mostly human-focused drama,
15:27where the King of the Monsters doesn't actually appear that much.
15:30Only a couple months after Godzilla came out,
15:33Legendary announced at San Diego Comic Con 2014,
15:36that Gareth Edwards would return to direct a sequel,
15:39after making his Star Wars film,
15:42Rogue One.
15:42And this time,
15:43they got the rights to Mothra,
15:45Rodan,
15:46and King Ghidorah,
15:47who would all feature.
15:49So,
15:49it did exactly what it needed to do,
15:51and kick-started a new era
15:53for the King of the Monsters.
15:55And a few months later,
15:57Toho would even announce that they'd return with their own new Godzilla film,
16:00which would eventually become Shin Godzilla,
16:03clearly influenced by the success of Godzilla 2014,
16:07showing there is still hunger for the G-Man in the modern landscape.
16:11As a Godzilla fan from the UK,
16:13you never really got to see Godzilla anywhere,
16:16if at all.
16:17There'd be no screenings,
16:19you wouldn't find merch in shops,
16:21and there'd be no one speaking about it.
16:22But 2014 was the spark that lit up an entire new generation of Godzilla fans.
16:28Suddenly,
16:28I was seeing posters of Godzilla on the walls,
16:31on buses,
16:32I started seeing Godzilla toys in shops,
16:34and people were flocking to see the new G-Man in IMAX,
16:38which was just an insane thing to think about,
16:40considering up to this point,
16:42he was practically unknown,
16:43at least in the UK.
16:44Though thanks to the hype and reception of Godzilla 2014,
16:48we're at this point now,
16:49where we're arguably in the golden age of the Godzilla franchise.
16:54And now I see Godzilla toys everywhere,
16:57and even screenings of the classics in cinemas,
17:00like the other month I watched GMK,
17:02and next month I'm going to watch Godzilla 2000 on the big screen.
17:05This would have been unheard of,
17:07pre-2014.
17:09Toho were in their A-game,
17:10releasing some of the best Godzilla films ever produced,
17:13and the MonsterVerse has flourished to be the highest grossing,
17:15most successful series of monster films ever made.
17:19Now Godzilla can be found pretty much everywhere,
17:21and its fan base is bigger than it's ever been.
17:24And it all started with this film.
17:27I'll never forget the insane hype of Godzilla 2014,
17:29and what it led to.
17:31And I'll certainly never forget that awesome film.
17:41It's safe to say that Godzilla 2014 had hype beyond that of any known Godzilla film.
17:46It reinvigorated the series,
17:48it corrected the wrongdoings of Godzilla 1998,
17:51showed what a super high-budget Godzilla film could look like,
17:55revolutionized how even Toho would utilize VFX in their films,
17:59and set the stage for the future of the franchise.
18:01And while in some people's eyes the film didn't meet expectations,
18:05that was only because the hype for the film was so high,
18:07after a decade of waiting,
18:09which was simply an impossible task.
18:12But the impact of the film is undeniable,
18:14and even its biggest haters can appreciate what it did for the series,
18:18in helping make Godzilla a household name more than ever.
18:21And that was in part thanks to the insane hype leading up to the film.
18:37But what film made you the most hyped?
18:39And should we take a look at the hype of Skull Island next?
18:41Let us know in the comment section down below.
18:43Don't forget to subscribe,
18:45and stomp the notification button,
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18:54We couldn't have got this far without you.
18:56I've been Alistair,
18:57and we'll see you residents,
18:59in the next one.