When Sony purchased the rights to create films around the Godzilla character, the company had envisioned creating a franchise. While it was a bumpy start to launch, the company found a creative team in producer Dean Devlin and director Roland Emmerich that carried a concept to release. That led to GODZILLA (1998), which had tremendous licensing from toys and an astounding $150 million in promotional tie ins, such as with Taco Bell.
As the movie neared release, a sequel began early pre-production. Devlin and Emmerich were attached, as producer and director. However, during this time the 1998 Godzilla film released in the United States to a $44 million opening weekend. Sony put on a brave face, with a spokesperson noting: "It's the seventh-biggest opening of all time, I don't know how anyone could be disappointed with these numbers." In the years that would follow, though, it became more apparent that the $130 million production, which had $50 million in marketing muscle behind it, missed expectations.
Despite not hitting the financial mark, Devlin and Emmerich had a vision on where they wanted the sequel to go. On separate occasions, Devlin has noted both that the sequel would feature multiple Godzillas and that it would include a more heroic Godzilla that would go to Monster Island, name dropping both Mothra and Rodan in the process. It should be noted that due to these being mentioned on different occasions there is a possibility they were juggling separate ideas, rather than a movie that would have featured both multiple Godzillas and Monster Island. Furthermore, the reference to multiple Godzillas was so vague it's open at this point how that could be. For example, were they all offspring of the original? Were some children of the offspring seen at the end of the 1998 film? Outside of the monster angle, Devlin also mentioned that Matthew Broderick playing scientist Nick Tatopoulos would have been the only reoccurring actor from the first film.
However, during the next six months following release, Sony began pushing for a sequel at a reduced budget. This idea did not interest Devlin and Emmerich and by December 1998 they publicly noted they would no longer be involved, except possibly as executive producers before leaving altogether in the summer of 1999. This led to a diverged iteration of the proposed sequel as writer Tab Murphy, fresh off his work for Disney's Tarzan, wrote a very different script compared to the hinted sequel concept that Devlin teased in interviews. |
