Some of you will remember that in the early 80s, various genre publications carried articles about how Steve Miner was planning an American version of Godzilla, written by THE MONSTER SQUAD's Fred Dekker, designed by William Stout and with special effects by Rick Baker and David Allen. There was even talk of doing it in 3-D.

You may have seen Stout's Godzilla design, which prefigured the later American version by making the King of the Monsters look more like a "real dinosaur," albeit more elegantly so, as Stout is a better artist than Tatopoulos. His 'Zilla didn't have that odd jawline and the head suggested a ceratosaurus rather than an iguana. And he would have breathed fire, as he was definitely meant to be "atomic powered."

Google turns up these blogger article on it. There are several thumbnail designs that can be clicked on and enlarged:

http://bsmbow.blogspot.com/2007/04/godzill...f-monsters.html

Thing is, I have this dim memory of reading an article that claimed the film would be told from the point of view of a film crew who happened to be doing a documentary on Alcatraz when Godzilla wades up out of the bay, and who would follow him on his rampage throughout the city. Does anybody else remember this? Did I hallucinate it?

Possibly so, as the detailed plot synopsis below doesn't mention a documentary film crew, and the climax rather than the monster's first appearance occurs on Alcatraz. The debt to GORGO should be pretty obvious.

http://www.kaijuphile.com/rodansroost/scra...odzilla3d.shtml

I have a copy of the screenplay sitting around somewhere (probably in a crate next to the Ark). The story was told from the perspective of a boy whose father was a military man, and there's tension between the father and the rival for his scientist ex-wife's affection (reminding me of the character triangle in the Ib Melchoir screenplay for "The Volcano Monsters"*). There is also a evil Soviet spy, adding a 1960s Bondian espionage angle, who wants to find out what is being held in a mysterious hanger (it's Godzilla's offspring). Not bad, but very '80s-style '50 plotting (if you know what I mean), and Dekker kills off the adult Godzilla in the finale (supposedly the "domesticated" offspring would have been featured in a sequel).

(Interestingly, several of the camera directions for Godzilla shots in the screenplay were used by Toho when they made THE RETURN OF GODZILLA aka GODZILLA 1985.)

*"The Volcano Monsters" was going to be a film produced by AB-PT Pictures (the same folks who brought you THE BEGINNING OF THE END), using not only special effects footage from GODZILLA RAIDS AGAIN, but also they had Toho ship them two new monster suits of Godzilla and Anguirus, in order to shoot new sequences. The project was abandoned and the film was released, dubbed, as GIGANTIS THE FIRE MONSTER in 1959.

August, have you read the Terry Rossio and Terry Elliott screenplay (or maybe just a treatment) for what eventually became the Emmerich film? Didn't it have similar GORGO-like elements?

The descriptions of the Dekker script I've found online all describe the "baby" Godzilla as a corpse, possibly killed by the soviets, rather than a live offspring. Of course, the script probably went through multiple versions. I'm pretty sure Stout's design did, too, as I've seen photos of models in which the dorsal spines were much more pronounced and "Godzilla-like."

Now where the Hell did I get that "documentary film crew POV" idea? It's stuck in my head ever since, and when I first heard of CLOVERFIELD, I recalled it.

Very cool info Ian. I remember reading small blurbs about it but never saw anything concrete.

And speaking of US GODZILLA films that didn't make it, does anyone have info on the versions Terry Gilliam and, later, Jan De Bont were working on. I always found it ironic that De Bont's was put in turn around because the $70 million dollar budget was considered too high (it was greenlit a year or two later with a huge budget for Emmerich).

I believe that it may have... I'd have to read it again (I read it back in 1994). I have found a link for the screenplay online, see link below!

You're correct; my faulty memory (then again, I read the script back in 1986 and haven't since). There was some REPTILICUS-style ending with the dead adult's claw moving, with a big "The End?" zooming to fill the frame. Cinefantastique covered the proposed film in an article on with Stout's storyboards. Steve Miner was to be the director, IIRC.

Nice.

There might have been an investigative television crew... swiped from THE CHINA SYNDROME. I have to pull that script out again.

Terry Gilliam was named in Japanese film magazines (most notably, the venerable Kinema Junpo), but there was never any further information beyond his name as a possible director, IIRC. On the other hand, Alex Cox wrote an Open Letter to Toho (submitted and published in Kinema Junpo), which outlined his story (about a female Godzilla being the last of her kind). But, the screenplay for DeBont's film is out there.

IIRC, Godzilla was going to be a mutation, and his rival (DeBont wanted King Ghidorah, but Toho wanted more money. Way more money) was a shape-shifter/absorbing creature (like Carpenter's THE THING), which morphs into a Griffon-like creature. Godzilla and the monster duke it out in New York City. The plot has a group of scientists who track Godzilla across country and witness his power as he instinctively goes after the alien intruder -- DeBont used this idea two years later in TWISTER (1996).

The DeBont GODZILLA screenplay is available online at Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio's official website http://www.wordplayer.com/archives/GODZILLA.cover.html

Last month, the maquette for DeBont's Godzilla (designed by Richardo Delgado) and created by Stan Winston Studios went up for auction on eBay:

Wow, very cool. Thanks so much for all of that info August.

You're very welcome! :D

I doubt very much that this is what you were thinking of, but I did bring it up here one time at least a year ago.

Between the time that Jan De Bont left the project, and Emmerich/Devlin took over, a screenwriter friend of mine queried his agent to see if they were sticking with the Elliott/Rossio draft, or if submissions were being accepted for an entirely new take. They said bring 'em on.

A few years prior, my friend had had an idea for a Godzilla film that involved an economic-political standoff between Japan and America that is derailed by the emergence of Godzilla out of the Marianas Trench. He makes short work of Tokyo, and ends up stomping around LA. The Japanese government stands by to use a variation on the ol' oxygen destroyer, but wields it as leverage to essentially force America's economic capitulation to Japan. In the end, the weapon is successfully deployed, but results in the final collapse of the California coast. It's pretty wonky.

However, he needed more characters and narrative beats to flesh out his scenario, and over a very long afternoon, I brainstormed a hook that amused me to no end, and that he wound up incorporating. He wrote it in over the course of two days(!), and I ended up with a secondary story credit.

This was the period when James Cameron was off making TITANIC, amidst whispers of profligacy and bad behavior. Nobody had any real idea whether the film was going to work at all, and many were betting he would demolish his career on this particular iceberg. Running with that, I introduced a maverick film director (Devlin, I think was the name my friend gave him) who is just barely hanging onto the reigns of a huge action movie set aboard a futuristic supertanker. He's filming in IMAX. On location. On a specially-constructed, full scale set. At the Marianas Trench. His mega-action star lead, in a fit of 'quien es mas macho?' pique with the director, insists on performing a massive fireball stunt himself - right when Godzilla collides with the tanker set on his way up. He is of course immolated. At this point, with a dead lead actor and a damaged main set, Devlin pulls a Carl Denham and decides to document the creature's reign of destruction using all the means at his disposal: an absolute arsenal of an airborne film crew, shooting IMAX for the impromptu 'biggest documentary of 'em all'...

Would'a been a gasser. :P

According to my magazine database, SPFX magazine issue 4 had some info' about the unmade 3D film.

Sadly, I don't have my copy of the magazine to hand at the moment.