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King of the Monsters director wants to make a prehistoric Godzilla movie next
Later this month, monster movie fans' cups will runneth over when Godzilla clashes with Mothran, Rodan, and the three-headed King Ghidorah in King of the Monsters. While this film is very much set in the modern day, director Michael Dougherty wouldn't mind rolling back the rock to the dawn of time in order to explore how early humans interacted with these famous kaiju.
"I like the idea of going back in time and telling creatures' stories from different eras," the Krampus filmmaker told SFX Magazine (via JoBlo). "[Kong] Skull Island was set in the '70s, but personally I'd like to do Godzilla B.C., go back to ancient times and really see the Ray Harryhausen-esque world where primitive humans had to try to survive with these creatures. Maybe we'd get to see the first time mankind truly encountered Godzilla, and get to see how that relationship was christened."
That actually sounds pretty awesome and if the King of the Monsters trailers are any indication thus far, Dougherty would be the perfect director to pull such a thing off. Would cavemen and women have treated these beasts as gods to be feared? Is this how human sacrifice first began, as tribute to these destructive titans of nature?
The possibilities are as intriguing as they are exciting and frightening. And aside from last summer's Alpha, the prehistoric genre is pretty much an untapped wellspring in terms of live-action movies. Could it really be that the last big budget blockbuster set in prehistory times was Roland Emmerich's 10,000 BC more than 10 years ago?
Whether or not that idea ever goes anywhere, Dougherty is still putting his own spin on Warner Bros. and Legendary's budding MonsterVerse. For example, he tweaked the design of Godzilla, so don't expect him to look the same as he did in his 2014 reboot feature from Rogue One director Gareth Edwards.
"I tweaked the back spikes, to bring them closer to the original 1954 spikes, because those were always my favorite. They are a very sculpted design — they almost look like fossilized fire," Dougherty added. "I also felt his spikes should be bigger, because in my mind his spikes are also his crown. If Godzilla's swimming straight at you, you see a beautiful silhouette if the spikes are big enough to crest above his head. I gave him slightly larger feet, because I felt a predator of his size would need to use his hind claws to tear into his prey. And I have him a slight club-like tail, inspired by the previous films. A little bit less pointed. Godzilla's never the same in any film, so I felt like I was continuing a tradition."
Godzilla: King of the Monsters stomps into theaters everywhere Friday, May 31. Dougherty co-wrote the screenplay with his Krampus producer, Zach Shields; the script itself is based on a story both conceived alongside Godzilla 2014 and Kong: Skull Island scribe Max Borenstein.
