The guys who wrote GODZILLA MILLENNIUM are now either collaborating on, or (possibly) writing dueling versions of, something called GODZILLA VS. MEGANURON. Meganuron was originally the monster insect that surprises the hell out of everyone in the original RODAN (1956). It was NEVER big enough to bother Godzilla, but I'm sure they're redesigning it. The whole concept appears to be derived from a bit of story (and budget) left out of the worst of all Godzilla movies (apart from the Tri-Star one), GODZILLA VS. SPACE GODZILLA.

GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE surely has made its money back, even though it's dreadful, but Toho Studios dug its heels in and demanded all KINDS of things for the American sale -- at that time, they still could probably have managed a theatrical sale, but they also were making completely unreasonable demands as far as how much money they wanted to sell it, and how many theaters it would open in, etc. ... Finally they did reach a kind of accord with Miramax, which hadn't yet become !!!MIRAMAX!!!, and then MIRAMAX sat on the thing for YEARS.

Finally BIOLLANTE was sold off, and shown on American cable. However, this whole experience left a bit of a bad taste in the studio's collective mouth. As suspicious of American concerns as they already were, they had only become more so. Of course they would not deal with Miramax again; but as well, negotiations for the Sony/Tri-Star GODZILLA had already begun. These were not paying off either (I'm frankly amazed the movie was made at all, and not remotely surprised it sucked as hard as it did.)

This is a simplistic series of explanations, as the details are endless, but I'll throw in one more observation: Toho Studios LONG AGO forfeited any chance they ever had at maintaining some kind of healthy relationships with reputable American studios. The Sony Godzilla deal was successfully brokered only because Sony is a Japanese company, in which case the right Japanese people knew the right Japanese people. Toho frittered away potentially valuable corporate relationships with Columbia, Universal, and a number of others. By the mid-sixties, no one wanted to deal with them except for American-International and even less principled operations.

So why can't we see these in theaters? Because Toho is top-loaded with petty and inept people, who cannot understand the market at large. As well, in all sincerity, these movies would probably not get more than an art-house release ... but 1995's outstanding GAMERA: GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE *WAS* able to play here in those venues. The following GAMERA 2 didn't show up here, but GAMERA 3 played a special screening in Los Angeles.

(shrug) It might be Ifukube, or, more likely, someone I never heard of, or, most likely, Takayuki Hattori, a seemingly talented fellow whose grandfather was a contemporary of Ifukube's (he scored three of Kurosawa's earliest pics), and whose credits to date include GODZILLA VS. SPACE GODZILLA, GODZILLA MILLENNIUM and THE RADIO HOUR. We could do worse, although I'd like to hear Reijiro Koroku get back to it (he did GOJIRA 84).

Joan: I mentioned this at the Old Board: director Kon Ichikawa, who made our beloved original BURMESE HARP, was talked into directing a remake. I haven't seen it, evidently it's the same story, although made in color; it has NONE of the old people involved except himself and his screenwriter wife Natto Wada, but yep, he did it. Why? Something to do, is all I can figure.

I've never met Ichikawa -- he's still among us, fortunately, and inasmuch as I hope to visit Japan later in the year ... nah, that's too much to ask for ...

Christopher, they don't even issue Godzilla movies on DVD in Japan, only here, and only a few of them ... this might be an early clue as to what the thinking (or rather, lack of same) IS at that company. I have done business with them, or attempted to -- no, they didn't manage to cheat me too badly -- and believe me, I know.

I forgot to mention, Tri-Star bought the rights to all the post-1989 Godzilla movies, and (perhaps understandably) repressed them until the awful American version came out. Clever and ambitious bootleggers, however, were making their OWN *SUBTITLED* versions during the MANY years during which Toho refused to sell their new product to ANYONE. (If this sounds insane, it's because it is.)

When you mentioned GODZILLA 2 for Tri Star, are you refering to a sequel to Emerich's Godzilla? And if so, who are the Evil Twins? And where is there info on this?

What little I know of it is from Harry Knowles' website:
http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com

It's been a while since they got some spy info on the picture -- something from one of the conceptual artists, as I recall, who said "I HATE what they're doing with it," and the story is so bizarre that, well you'll have to read it for yourself -- they're still in the planning stages, but at the abovementioned site, you can dig into the archives and find the whole story.

Another good up-to-the-minute, regularly updated site is called Coming Attractions:
http://www.corona.bc.ca/films/mainframed.html

Happy hunting.

MILLENNIUM begins extremely well, then kind of tapers off into a midsection that's sometimes VERY boring, then picks up again with the final battle, although I didn't find the monster he was fighting very interesting. Additionally, there simply wasn't enough Godzilla in it (a strange recent trend: GAMERA 3, while superbly made, had very little Gamera in it. Reminds me of the second Gamera film from the 1960s series, GAMERA VS. BARUGON: there's maybe TEN minutes of Gamera footage in the whole thing, out of a 100-minute movie! Although, paradoxically, that's probably the best one from the original Gamera series. Probably didn't hurt that it's the only one of the original bunch to have been granted an A-level budget ... )

Oh yes, what little I remember about the Evil Twins' version of GODZILLA 2: part of the present story has ANOTHER Godzilla emerging, one that looks more like the Japanese design. Apparently the first one was an impostor of some kind. At present Matthew Broderick isn't being tapped to star, but they hope Jean Reno will return. (Reno stole that picture even from the lizard. I'll say that I didn't find it an awful design in itself, though I found it a bit too remniscent of the Vermithrax's babies in DRAGONSLAYER.)

The whole account is somewhere on Harry Knowles' website mentioned above (check the archives.)

Surprise! GODZILLA 2000 will be released in American theaters this summer -- current release date is set for August 11. According to the New York Times, GODZILLA 2000 will be shown in Japanese with English subtitles. To which I say, "Good." This means it won't get a wide release, but they know very well it won't clean up theatrically anyway.

I don't understand WHY the Japanese monster movies wouldn't CLEAN UP during a summer in the United States!

Considering that I live in nuclear paradise, I doubt if it will show here. Hopefully, it will at least come as close as Seattle.