Anguirus アンギラス (2003)

With the final draft of Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003) completed, director Masaaki Tezuka originally intended for a Liopleurodon to fall victim to Godzilla's wrath, its corpse later washing ashore. However, Tezuka decided to swap out the marine creature for Anguirus instead. Not surprisingly, producer Shogo Tomiyama rejected this idea, as like the year before he wanted to see Anguirus brought back in a more substantial role in a possible future project, as well as to avoid angering fans of the monster.

After some deliberation, the more obscure Kamoebas from Space Amoeba (1970) would end up filling in the role, while Anguirus would finally make its long-awaited comeback a year later in 2004's Godzilla: Final Wars.

• No known official concept artwork of Anguirus (2003) exists. The illustration in the article picture is an interpretation created by artist 2009MECHAGODZILLA and was commissioned for use on Toho Kingdom by staff. It was not created by Toho nor is it their official look for the unused character.
• Mention of this unused incarnation can be found in several books such as Godzilla Against Type-3 Kiryu (Mechagodzilla) Completion (ISBN: 4798613533) and John LeMay's The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films (ISBN: 1548145254).
• During a Q&A session with Tezuka at G-FEST XXII, the director recalled being frustrated when his proposal for Anguirus was turned down, to which he responded, "Fine! Then why don’t we just use Gamera!?" - paving the way for Kamoebas' eventual inclusion.