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Ishiro Honda’s original “Gojira” was released in Japan in 1954, and helped popularize a giant monster movie genre that remained ascendant for seven decades. Godzilla movies are still being made to this day, with Toho’s most recent film, “Godzilla Minus One” coming out in 2023, and Legendary’s “Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire” having been part of the landscape cinematic for For so long, its popularity has risen, fallen, and risen again. There have been multiple “endings” to the Godzilla series, and just as many reboots. He is more flexible and more prone to rebooting than James Bond.
From 1954 to 1975, Godzilla more or less followed a single continuity, and all 15 films released during this period are said to be from the showa era. From 1975 to 1983, there would be no theatrical Godzilla films, with the series rebooting in 1984 with the release of Koji Hashimoto’s “The Return of Godzilla,” a direct sequel to the 1954 original that ignored all 14 sequels. The seven films released from 1984 to 1995 are said to be part of the Heisei era.
Toho has always been protective of Godzilla, and will only license its favorite monster under specific circumstances. It was vital that if another company made a Godzilla movie, it be a high-profile film with an adequate budget and impressive production values. In 1983, it appears that American filmmaker Steve Miner had reached a co-financing deal with Toho to make his own Godzilla film. Miner, in 1983, was best known as a slasher director, having made “Friday the 13th Part II” and “Friday the 13th Part III.”
Miner’s journey developing his own Godzilla movie, to be called “Godzilla: King of the Monsters in 3-D,” is detailed in Steve Ryfle’s book “Japan’s Favorite Mon-Star Star: The Unauthorized Biography of Big G”.
Steve Miner developed his own Godzilla film in 1983
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The story goes that the miner was a huge Godzilla fan, and worked on his own treatment for what would be the first American-produced Godzilla film. He showed his treatment to superiors and Toho and, surprisingly, they agreed to co-finance it. Miner’s only job was to put together a script and get an American studio to agree to finance the film the rest of the way.
The script was the easy part. The Miner hired Fred Dekker to write the script. Dekker’s name is well known to fans of the genre, as he wrote “Night of the Creeps,” “The Monster Squad” and “Robocop 3.” Miner asked Dekker to write “Godzilla: King of the Monsters in 3-D” specifically because he was not a Godzilla fan; Miner needed someone who would pay more attention to story and structure than fan service. Dekker agreed and came up with a traditional Godzilla type of story, rebooting the franchise again.
Of the early days of the project, Miner said:
‘I had always been a fan since I was a kid. Once I watched it as an adult, I realized this could be remade as a good movie. My original idea was to do it in 3D. I had just done it’Friday the 13th in 3Dand I wanted to make a good 3D movie, and I thought miniatures would lend themselves to making good 3D effects. So it was a combination of trying to make a really good monster movie and doing it in 3D. I had to get the rights, so I went to Japan and made a deal with the people at Toho to co-finance the development of the project, myself and Toho.”
Everything was ready.
What would have happened in the 1983 Godzilla movie and why was it cancelled?
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In the script, a passing meteorite triggers an automated nuclear attack, leading to an explosion in the South Pacific. The bomb appears to awaken a long-lived underwater monster, Godzilla, who, over the course of the film, gradually makes landfall in the United States. The monster, the human characters later learn, is searching for his dead baby, rescued from the ocean by the military. The climax took place on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco.
It was said that Dekker models his script less on the Godzilla films and more on the new rise of high-end adventure films like Steven Spielberg was making at the time. Dekker, in “Japan’s Favorite Mon-Star”, was quoted as saying that he wanted this film to feel like a James Bond film; Something slippery and exciting, not dependent on mere monster chaos. He specifically said that he didn’t want his film to be “cheesy.” Miner reportedly approached Powers Boothe about appearing in the film, as well as a very young Demi Moore, then a rising star best known for the monster movie “Parasite.” Miner even commissioned a storyboard for “Monsters in 3-D,” and hired several notable artists to plot his film and design a new version of Godzilla. David W. Allen was to provide stop-motion effects for Godzilla, and Rick Baker was hired (but did not work) on an animatronic Godzilla head.
However, the project was canceled when Miner was unable to find an American studio willing to spend the millions needed to make it. The budget was to be $30 million, and Miner had not yet demonstrated that he could exercise such a budget. Then Toho began work on its 1984 film “The Return of Godzilla,” and interest changed. The film simply failed.
Miner, luckily, continued making interesting horror films. He moved on to “House,” then the excellent “Witcher,” the Michael Myers movie “Halloween H20: 20 Years Later” and the giant Gator movie “Lake Placid.” Maybe someone would let him make a Godzilla movie now.
