Unmade Film
Intended Release: 1975

Godzilla vs. Hitodah

ゴジラ対ヒトダ
[Gojira tai Hitodah]

A starfish living in the polluted sea is exposed to a variety of contaminates. This triggers an abnormal effect in the sea creature, causing its body to undergo a violent metamorphosis.

Mutating into a gigantic monster, the beast goes on the attack until it eventually confronts Godzilla, who does battle with it.

LOST PROJECT HISTORY

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.

Monsters

Background and Trivia

• Note: the name of the project is unknown. Godzilla vs. Hitodah is used as a placeholder. This name originated from Toho Kingdom by modifying the word for Starfish (ヒトデ - Hitode) to form "Hitodah", although a more likely spelling and name might have been "Hitoderah" (ヒトデラ). Furthermore, the look for the creature above is not representative of how it would have looked in the film, but rather was a construct by Toho Kingdom.
• Director Yoshimitsu Banno mentioned the concept in an interview found in Tokyoscope: The Japanese Cult Film Companion (ISBN: 1569316813). During the interview he notes the movie would have been about a starfish living in the polluted seas that metamorphoses into a monster.
• Age of the Gods (self-published) mentions that Tomoyuki Tanaka originally selected director Yoshimitsu Banno to do the 15th Godzilla film due to his work on Prophecies of Nostradamus (1974).

Concept Evolution