The DIN SAUR
Interplanetary Gazette |
Frontpage
| 
Saur-O-Find-O-Matic
| 
Contact
Us | Autograph Book | Dino-Movie
News | 
Dino
Bookshop |Classifieds |
Updated
May 14, 1998
Latest
News | Articles | The
Production | 
Special
Effects News! |
The
Dinosaur News Network (TM)(and
the GNN,
too!
(So there)
14-May-98
New York City, New York, USA
PREMIER LIVE ON E!
Have you got cable TV? Check out E! They will broadcast the Premiere LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE!Monday Night May 18, 1998 at 7PM.
See chaos! See millions of people acting crazy! See BIG movie
stars. Listen to announcers screaming! Watch New York Police running every
which way! Oh Boy! We can't wait. Be there or be square.
INSANE PREMIERE AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN
They're lining up already for the incredible Godzilla Premiere at Madison Square Garden on Monday Night May 18, 1998 at 7PM. It is sold out. Rumors are that once everyone is inside, The Big G will come and squash the Garden! (NOT). Actually, they will show the film and make lots of noise. D.I.G. will be there to take pictures just for YOU!
CRITERION TO RELEASE NEW LASERDISKS
The grapevine tells us that Criterion is making special new editions of the classic Godzilla films. Bruce Eder, famed film historian, is writing the liner notes. They may, in fact, be the ORIGINAL JAPANESE versions released for the first time!
GODZILLA ON DVD
Everything old becomes new again. The newest format - DVD = Digital Versatile Disk - has the oldest and best G Movies. For the first time, they are letterboxed and super duper clear and clean! Check 'em out... we have cover photos and stuff!
2-May-98
G-
Factoid! Before the new Godzilla movie,
there were 22 Japanese films starring the one and only Original Big G!
Be
sure to enter the Godzilla Contest! Win Random
House Godzilla Books and more!
24-Feb-98
Dateline - Everywhere?
23-Feb-98
Did you forget? Ken Carpenter is that paleontologist whose life was changed at the age of four when his Mom took him to see Godzilla! He decided on the spot that big monsters was what he wanted to spend his life studying.
Jeff Martz,
another cool paleo guy, shared this with us. Gee, those
paleo guys sure are scientific, aren't they? Even Vera Velociraptor our
resident genius had trubble with some of this.Can you explain it to us? 
Ken's paper includes discussion of Godzilla's relationship to other theropods.
The four fingered hand is a primitve feature lost in tetanurans,
as are the teeth extending ventral to the eye socket. He cites the
dermal armour as evidence of a relationship with Ceratosaurus,
and also notes the apparantly deep premaxilla and very large temporal fenestra
as evidence of abeliosaur affinity. He considers Godzilla to be a
Jurassic basal ceratosaur.
Ken also makes a mass estimate for _Godzilla_ of about 9,800 tonnes,
and a conservative height estimate of 100 feet rather the the oft-repeated
400 feet, based on footage of Godzilla next to high voltage transmission
towers. He chalks up the larger estimations to stress-induced exaggeration
by witnesses.
The paper further includes speculations on the source of _Godzilla_'s fire-breathingabilities,
thourougly nifty skull and skeletal reconstructions, and the probable mechanism
for Dr. Serizawa's "oxygen destroyer".
Ken speculates that _Godzilla_'s upright tailing dragging posture is due
to radiation induced mutations. I have thought of another
possibility; it may be that _Godzilla_'s upright posture, and plantigrade
feet, are actually adaptations to its extreme mass. Pillar-like
legs and plantigrade feet are found in large, relatively slow moving animals
like elephants and sauropods. Moreover, the upright posture might
be a way of taking a lot of stress off the posterior dorsal vertebrae,
rather then having those vertebrae have to suppormost of that presacral
mass that was hanging off into space, as in most theropods. Standing
more upright might reduce this stress, similar to humans putting balancing
our big
fat heads on a vertical vertebral column.
Anyway,
the paper is a lot of fun and the reconstrcutions are cool. I'd love
to say more, but you are just going to have to wait! HA HA HA HA HA
HA !! 
9-Feb-98
From:
G Smith 12/5/97 4:05
> >>Scott
Yamano
>
>>Centropolis Interactive
> >>P.S. Check out the poster of Godzilla VS.
the Thing if you are curious where the images came from.
From:
Dinogeorge 12/4/97 16:10
Ken Carpenter had a little fun with his new theropod
Gojirasaurus.
Articles
Dateline: 15 May 1997, New York City, New York
If you were a big grey-green monster, which city would you crush under your gigantic size 200 clawed feet?
Tokyo?
Dallas?
London?
Nope! It's New York City!
And who's doing the stomping?
Why... it's everybody's favorite: Godzilla, King of the Monsters!
The guys who made Independence Day can't seem to get the destruction of buildings out of their heads. We guess there just weren't any slimy aliens around to hire, so this time they found a new monster to do it.
But instead of stomping Japan on this go round, The Big Guy is out to get a major US city: The Big Apple!! Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street in New York, New York is swarming with tanks and rocket launchers and guns and soldiers and Hummers and thick smoke and rain and big yellow trucks that dropped off tons and tons and tons of dead fish!
And guess who is on his way to eat a fifty foot pile of fish??????
That's right! Only this time around, Godzilla will be a CG (computer graphics) monster. The rumors are that he is Totally Cool and Super Realistic!
This all takes place right in front of New York's historic Flatiron Building. But we guess they will have to change the name to the Flattened-iron Building when this movie is done filming. At least we hope so!
Stay tuned to D.I.G for the latest and greatest news on the biggest and the baddest monster of them all!
Oh, by the way, Godzilla will be in your city in May, 1998!
TriStar Pictures' monster epic Godzilla, from filmmakers Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, the team behind last summer's multi-million dollar box office phenomenon Independence Day, began principal photography in Manhattan in early May. The film stars Matthew Broderick and Jean Reno, who will be joined by Hank Azaria (The Bird Cage), Maria Pitillo (Dear God, Bye, Bye Love), Harry Shearer (This is Spinal Tap), Arabella Field (Dante's Peak, Feeling Minnesota), Michael Lerner (Barton Fink) and, of course, Godzilla, star of 22 films and king of the big screen monsters.
Directed by Roland Emmerich and produced by Dean Devlin from an original script they co-wrote, the film will shoot on locations in and around New York City, including such famous locales as Central Park and the Wall Street district. "We needed a location as big as Godzilla and, after Tokyo, only New York has that kind of scale and drama," notes executive producer William Fay. This production marks Emmerich's return to Manhattan a year and a half after he shot several scenes for Independence Day in the city. Emmerich adds that, "there are certain cities and skylines you can cheat by using other locations, but New York is definitely not one of them. It's such a well-known American landmark. Besides, why would you want to? It's a great place and we're happy to return."
Broderick, who recently starred in the forthcoming Addicted to Love, as well as the hit Broadway play "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," plays a biologist tracking the giant monster. Reno, who starred in the stylistic thriller The Professional, as well as French Kiss and Mission: Impossible, plays an insurance agent investigating the mayhem left in Godzilla's wake.
"Ever since Roland and I started working together we have always wanted to work with Matthew Broderick," comments Devlin. "He's one of our favorite actors in the world, but it's never worked out due to various scheduling conflicts. Finally, we're in a position where we can make a movie together and it has been a lot of fun so far. It's a really good match of sensibilities."
Emmerich and Devlin were also longtime fans of Reno, "from The Big Blue on through La Femme Nikita and The Professional. As with Matthew, we specifically wrote the part for Jean. As we were writing the script and dreaming the parts, we actually got the very people we had in mind, which was a unique and exciting opportunity."
Hank Azaria, who won widespread kudos for his performance in The Bird Cage, plays Animal, an intrepid cameraman. "Hank Azaria is one of the most exciting actors out there today," says Devlin. "He totally stole the show in The Bird Cage and more than demostrated his versatility with his work on The Simpsons, for which he's done about a million different voices. He's just a wonderful, wonderful actor who comes to the project with an enormous amount of energy and love for Godzilla, because he is a Godzilla fan from way back."
Harry Shearer, whom the filmmakers have admired since he co-created and starred as heavy metalist Derek Smalls in the classic "rockumentary" This is Spinal Tap, plays a pompous television reporter. Maria Pitillo stars as Audrey, an aspiring, naive reporter. Michael Lerner, who was widely acclaimed for his portrayal of a grandiose movie mogul in Barton Fink and recently played Fran Drescher's father in The Beautician and the Beast, appears as the beleagured mayor of New York City. Arabella Field rounds out the cast as Lucy, Audrey's sympathetic friend as well as Animal's patient if vocal wife.
The production will shoot on location in New York for approximately a month before returning to Los Angeles. The monster itself, which will be created through a combination of several complicated effects, including motion capture, computer animation and puppets, will not be joining the production in New York until the effects are mated with live action footage. But Godzilla will definitely descent on New York. During pre-production, associate producer Peter Winther and visual effects supervisor Volker Engel captured a Godzilla's eye view of the city via special cameras mounted in helicopters.
"New York is a remarkable, unique location, especially as seen from above. It is immediately and universally recognizable, the classic setting for a classic character like Godzilla," Winther comments.
The prospect of updating the famous character created and owned by Toho Co., Ltd., for contemporary audiences intrigued Emmerich and Devlin. "Because of the phenomenal reaction to Independence Day, Roland and I were fortunate enough to travel around the world to promote it. It seemed that in every country we were asked the same question: How do you follow up a movie like Independence Day? It was a really tough question to answer. The only thing that seemed remotely in the ballpark was Godzilla. It afforded us the opportunity to do something bigger, wilder and more amazing than we'd ever attempted before. The challenge was bringing it back to the way people felt when they sat in the movie theater and saw the very first Godzilla for the very first time. It's something you can only accomplish with the latest advances in today's special effects technology."
"Godzilla is the kind of project that plays to our strengths," adds executive producer Ute Emmerich. "We are very comfortable with films that involve a lot of different kinds of visual and mechanical effects, and this project gives us an opportunity to explore that to an even greater degree."
Godzilla is executive produced by Roland Emmerich, Ute Emmerich and William Fay. The film is co-written by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin with Emmerich directing and Devlin producing. Peter Winther is associate producer. Rob Fried and Cary Woods are the co-executive producers. A Centropolis Entertainment/Woods Entertainment/Fried Films production, the film will be released by TriStar Pictures. Ueli Steiger is the director of photography. Production designer is Oliver Scholl. Joseph Porro is the costume designer. Centropolis FX and Visionart will create the digital effects, with Volker Engel serving as visual effects supervisor. Creature effects are by Tatopoulos Design, Inc.
Created and owned by Toho Co, Ltd., Godzilla first appeared in Japan in the 1954 release Gojira. An American version of the film was released in the U.S. in 1956 as Godzilla, King of the Monsters. Since then, Godzilla has starred in an enormously successful series of films that includes the recent Japanese blockbusters Godzilla vs. Mothra and Godzilla vs. Destoroyah.
The major motion picture is slated for a May 20, 1998 release.
NEW YORK (Variety) - Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, the duo behind the year's largest worldwide box office grosser ''Independence Day,'' have committed to
write and direct TriStar's revival of the ``Godzilla'' franchise, and deliver it for release in summer 1998.After getting agreement from TriStar and franchise rights holder Toho Co. in Japan, Devlin and Emmerich will start writing the script next week, hoping to start production next spring.
TriStar executive Chris Lee had been courting Emmerich and Devlin for the ``Godzilla'' job way before the release of ''Independence Day'' (Daily Variety, Dec. 8, 1995). But it wasn't until last week that their CAA agent Michael Wimer
and attorneys Doug Stone, John Diemer and Glenn Meredith finally got the deal done with TriStar president Robert Cooper and Col-TriStar vice chairman Lucy
Fisher.While the deal details are a much better kept secret than alien communication codes, Devlin and Emmerich got much the same promise from TriStar and Toho as they extracted from Fox on Day: full creative control as long as they come in at a reasonable budget.
``We have some radical ideas of what to do with Godzilla, and we knew we needed approvals from Japan and wanted to get them before we started the script,'' Devlin said.
``They were a little taken aback initially, but then got excited. We really think we've found a way to bring the franchise back.''
Devlin said the initial ``Godzilla'' scripts were strong enough to get the duo on board, but they feel their radically different take will force them to start from scratch.
It gives TriStar two giant sci-fi films over the next two summers, as the studio will release the Paul Verhoeven-directed ``Starship Troopers'' in 1997.
Their immediate priority is figuring out a way to unleash the giant lizard who has starred in 22 Japanese films.
``Roland and I are taking off again immediately for Mexico, which is our good luck spot for writing, and where we'll scream at each other for six weeks and hopefully come back with the script.
Patrick Tatopoulos, who designed the creatures for ''Stargate'' and ``Independence Day,'' has already come up with the new Godzilla. Devlin will serve as Producer
Bill Fay and Ute Emmerich are executive producers, and Rob Fried and Cary Woods will be coexecutive producers.
Science? Godzilla? Isn't that an oxymoron? (That means something that really doesn't make any sense.)
In the beginning, Godzilla (called Gojira in Japan) came to life because of the atomic bomb. The famous first movie was intended to warn people about how bad atomic weapons are!
Some people think Godzilla is a dinosaur, but he isn't, really. He's a, hmmm, he's a... Godzilla! And there is only one of those.
But there are some interesting questions about Godzilla. Could there really be a monster that big? Could it really have atomic breath? How much would it need to eat? How much would the ground shake when it walked around? Where would it sleep at night? (The last one is easy: anywhere it wanted to!)
Think about these questions, though, and e-mail
us your answers!
More Big G Pics to blast your eyeballs!
It has both in-print and out-of-print books. You can order lots of them right here online through our Dino Bookshop. We make a little commission from Amazon.Com on anything you buy, and that helps support DIG, okay?
