Illness kept producer Tomoyuki Tanaka from being heavily involved in Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971), as he was in the hospital during the tight one month shoot for the production. In the end, the producer was unhappy with the final product by director Yoshimitsu Banno. As a result, he tapped Jun Fukuda to direct the next three Godzilla films. During this time, though, Banno worked heavily on the successful Prophecies of Nostradamus (1974). Impressing Tanaka, the producer selected Banno as the director of the next Godzilla film to be released in 1975. This was made public with an announcement by Toho about Banno being chosen.
Once assigned, Banno began work on creating another installment in the Godzilla series. Like his first Godzilla movie, Banno had wanted the next film to have a strong message against pollution. For this he envisioned not an alien this time but an earth creature that would be horribly mutated after being exposed to pollution. This led to having a starfish transforming into a giant monster, one that would eventually challenge Godzilla.
However, Banno scraped the idea and started coming up with a different concept that would feature a rematch between the King of the Monsters and Hedorah. |