The 18th of May, 1998, Godzilla premiered at the Madison Square Garden in New York. This release is the culmination of several attempts to make an American film based on the TOHO character — which precede that date by at least two decades. As far back as the 1960s, Godzilla’s potential for international appeal had been considered by figures such as Henry Saperstein, the head of UPA (United Productions of America) at the time. This interest eventually resulted in the American dubbing and distribution of several Godzilla films (starting with Mothra Vs. Godzilla), as well as the release of the Hanna & Barbera Godzilla Power Hour. Saperstein’s ambitions did not stop there, for he began negotiating for the rights to an American Godzilla picture in the mid 1970s. He related: “for ten years I pressured Toho to make one in America. Finally they agreed” (Galbrait, 1994).

Saperstein began pitching the idea to American production companies. His proposals were met with great interest from two producers – Cary Woods and Robert N. Fried, who had a production deal with Sony Pictures Entertainment at the time. The duo immediately recognized the potential of an American Godzilla with state-of-the-art special effects. “The thinking was to take a classic legend that was renowned for its campy effects and make it seriously, applying big-budget, American technology,” Fried said (Strauss, 1998).

The idea was passed on to Columbia Pictures — a subsidiary of Sony — with scarce results at first. “We pitched the idea to Columbia and they passed outright,” Woods recalled. “their response was they felt it had the potential for camp” (Nashawaty, 1998). Response from TriStar – Columbia’s sister company – was initially similar — with more of a positive note. Chris Lee, vice-president of production at TriStar at the time, was indeed familiar with the nuclear beast. “I grew up in Hawaii,” he said, “and I actually watched the Godzilla movies in a Toho theater. I saw the original Japanese version there, as well as the subsequent ones, and I always thought that I’d love to see another Godzilla movie, though when I started doing this in 1991-1992, I don’t remember getting much encouragement. It was a film that I had always wanted to do, but I wasn’t exactly sure quite how to accomplish it. I knew that I wanted to tell a story that was done straight-ahead, in the spirit of the first movie, which was not campy. I wanted to reflect not what the movie had become but how it started out. I loved the goofier Godzillas too, but I knew a new version was about taking it seriously. You can’t consciously set out to make it campy” (Aberly, 1998).

However enthusiastic, Lee still had to face the higher-ups. Upon his wife’s suggestion, Lee had Woods pitching it directly to the Sony chairman and chief executive officer of the time, Peter Guber. The proposal was met with immediate enthusiasm — Guber called Godzilla “an international brand” that that could spawn a series of films in the forthcoming years (Bart, 1999).
He thus pitched Godzilla at TriStar and negotiations finally began in 1992.
Sony offered TOHO an advance payment of circa $400.000, as well as an annual licensing fee for use of the name and character for American productions, as well as production bonuses, a percentage of international ticket sales and merchandising profits, and distribution and merchandising profits. Toho could also continue to produce and release Godzilla films independently before, during and after the release of the TriStar film (Aiken, 2015).

The deal was only signed after a significant amount of sweating: Woods and Fried had to face TOHO’s infamous tenacity that, decades before, exterminated many attempts to even use vaguely Godzilla-like characters for brands. “It took me two years to negotiate the Toho deal,” Fried related. “It was a painstaking process; they even sent me a four-page, single-spaced memo describing the physical requirements the Godzilla in our film had to have. They’re very protective” (Strauss, 1998). The document sent to the producers – reportedly a 75-page text – defined the ‘rules’ that the new film should follow to portray Godzilla: the monster must be created by a nuclear accident; it must have three rows of dorsal fins, four claws on each hand and foot, and a long tail; it must not feed on people, must ‘not be made fun of’ and ‘it cannot die’ (Ryfle, 1999; Aiken, 2015).

The ultimate contract stated that TOHO would grant rights to the use of the Godzilla name and character for an American film to be produced, marketed and distributed by TriStar. Rights to the picture were shared: Sony owned the rights worldwide except for Japan, where Toho claimed ownership and distribution. The companies would maintain these rights indefinitely, ensuring that both the film and its titular monster would perpetually be copyrighted and trademarked as Godzilla. Sony also bought similar “rights packages” for most of the creature characters from the TOHO Godzilla films produced from 1954 to 1975. Additionally, Sony was granted merchandising rights outside Japan and was allowed to produce an animated sequel for television (an option that eventually gave birth to Godzilla: The Series). Concerning sequels the terms of the contract allowed Sony the option to produce further Godzilla films, which would be managed on a film-by-film basis with TOHO. Of course, TOHO had full control over the character and likeness rights to the new Godzilla – meaning that Sony would need TOHO’s permission to use it in any way that was not specifically defined in the contract; inversely, TOHO would be completely free to include TriStar’s Godzilla in their productions even after the conclusion of their deal with the other company (Aiken, 2015).

With the legal matters quenched, it was now time to set the beast in motion. Initial reports of an expected release in 1994 appeared on Variety, alongside a roster of other productions (Frook, 1992) most of which would eventually not see the light of day. The company went on and officially announced the film the following month, with a projected budget in the range of $40 million dollars (Aiken, 2015).

The first imperative was conceiving a story for the film, something that — rather curiously — had not been explored before. TriStar wanted their film to appeal to a worldwide audience that would go beyond those that were already knowledgeable to Godzilla; it was thus mandatory to have a new story that would not be a direct sequel to any of the original films.

Thematically, Fried intended to remain faithful to the original rhetoric — Godzilla would be a victim of nuclear weaponry, baptized in its fire. As for how the beast would look and behave, TriStar had a range of options. At the time, Godzilla had already starred in a total of 20 films — with the latest, Godzilla Vs. Mothra, released the same year TriStar nailed the deal. In that amount of different stories, the monster went through a number of different permutations. The more animalistic original iteration — a ghost of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki tragedy returning to torment Japan, as envisioned by the filmmakers — was followed by the decision to gear the pictures more towards younger audiences. With the late Showa-Heisei era reboot, Godzilla (1984), the character reverted to a more ominous tone, which progressively developed in sequels into an anti-hero figure that the audience could empathize with, while also striking fear.

This last iteration was the one the TriStar producers were most favourable with at the time. Woods and Fried invited a number of filmmakers to elaborate story ideas for the film – including Tim Burton, the Thomas brothers (writers of Predator) and Clive Barker (writer of Hellraiser). Barker wrote a limited amount of pages containing notes for a story, but they were considered “too dark” for the project (Ryfle, 1999).

The first real development only came about in May, 1993, when Woods and Fried met with an interesting writing duo — Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio (Ryfle, 1999; Aiken, 2015).

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