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Yoshimitsu Banno was so pleased with Hedorah
that he started writing another Godzilla film after wrapping
his first entry in the long running series. A unnamed project,
dubbed Godzilla vs. Hitodah
on the site, was his first attempt, but he abandoned it in
favor of a direct sequel to his 1971 film Godzilla called
Godzilla vs. Hedorah 2. However, Tomoyuki
Tanaka, who was hospitalized during the production of
Godzilla vs.
Hedorah (1971), was extremely dissatisfied with the
final product and went as far as to tell Banno that he had
"ruined Godzilla!" So Tanaka
immediately barred Banno from making another Godzilla film.
In fact, Banno was never allowed to direct another Toho film
again, reduced to assistant director for Prophecies
of Nostradamus (1974) and as overseer of the animated
TV show Cashan: Robot Hunter (1988).
According to Banno though, from later interviews
conducted with him, Godzilla vs. Hedorah 2 was actually
still being worked on after he was removed from the project.
Although who the new director would have been is unknown,
but Jun Fukuda seems
the most likely candidate considering that he would step up
to direct the next three Godzilla films. If the film was going
to keep its Africa setting at this stage is not known. The
project was eventually scrapped, and three more proposed projects
would be introduced that following year before finally settling
on Godzilla
vs. Gigan (1972).
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