(Legendary) Godzilla 2 news

[JasonPratt]

So, recently the second G film in Legendary's Godzillaverse has had its release date pushed back to the spring equinox (or near enough, March 22) of 2019. Not entirely sure why; possibly the idea is to put 2 years between every entry henceforth, with Kong: Skull Island being next year's.

Anyway. The official title seems to be set to Godzilla: King of the Monsters, which makes me grit my teeth, because that's already the title of an entry. This level of originality does not bode well.

Also not boding well: news that Michael Dougherty has been signed as the director. (I'm hearing different levels of surety about this; imdb is currently more iffy.) He's also at least one of the assigned writers.

His previous directing gigs: the Trick 'R Treat Halloween short story anthology from 2007, and 2015's Krampus.

His previous writing gigs: X-Men 2 (converting story from two other people), story and screenplay credit on Superman Returns (understandable after XM2, which was widely considered the 2nd best film of that series and the best until First Class, but still... ), Krampus, and X-Men: Apocalypse (which I didn't hate as much as many people did, but still...) Oh, also an entry in the Urban Legends video series, and Trick R Treat as expected.

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This does not fill me with brimming confidence. Gareth Edwards at least had some experience making a thoughtful and elegant kaiju film.

[GDS_Starfury]

your post needs more text.

it lacks the width and breadth of the commentary we're used to from you.

[mirth]

your post needs more text.

it lacks the width and breadth of the commentary we're used to from you.

Dude. You're on fire tonight 

[JasonPratt]

Did I ever post my giant screed about how repeatedly annoying the first film was?  :P ::)

Well, Gareth definitely did better with Rogue One. 

[mirth]

How the fuck did he get Godzilla and Rogue One?  Monsters was stupidly awful.

[JasonPratt]

I'm pretty sure I still think Monsters is overall a better movie (and overall better on the kaiju) than G2014.

But obviously he got G'14 because he proved he could make an atmospheric and visually evocative monster movie on a budget, capable of making a reasonable profit, and they wouldn't have to pay him as much personally as some other directors. Possibly also because the producers thought they could push him around as a sophomore director on a film above his current pay grade. There was a lot of evident tampering on G'14 by too many people who thought they knew what they wanted in a modern G film with American studio power behind it. (Y'know, like G98! :P )

If so, I'm guessing that stops after Rogue One. ;) Just stay out of his way and let him print your money, fools. I was okay with him wanting to drop out of G2 -- I'm in principle okay with any director refusing a job, even if I want him there and I wasn't sure I wanted him there again anyway. I just couldn't tell from the final product if he should be let back on to the property, or if he should move along; so if he chose to move along, I didn't feel like it would be a loss. (Or a gain; I didn't know what to feel about it.)

Now I wish he was back on board, and maybe more in charge than previously. But eh. Toho directly seems to be in position to gear up for G films again, and they did more than fine. If the next film tanks, I'm sure I can still get some enjoyment out of it, and someone somewhere will probably be working on something better with the property. Kong's entry next year looks reasonably boss.

[ghostryder]

I'd love a movie to do justice to godzilla. He was pretty bad ass in the last one but the movie focused more on the 2 actors than on Godzilla. And those bird things were pretty weak as an opponent.