"Godzilla 2000" Released In The U.S. 20 Years Ago

Above, the U.S. poster for Godzilla 2000.

This month marks the 20th anniversary of the U.S. theatrical release of Godzilla 2000 (the U.S. title for Japan's Godzilla 2000 Millennium) that was produced by Toho Pictures in 1999.

This was the first theatrical wide release of a Japanese Godzilla movie since Godzilla 1985. The event (along with the opening of G-FEST 2000 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel) was celebrated at the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors when they proclaimed "Godzilla Week".

Above, the "Godzilla Week" proclamation scroll by the Los
Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Godzilla 2000 would never have been produced had Tri-Star's Godzilla (1998) been a critical and a better box office success. It was so badly derided that G-fan Richard Pusateri's nickname of G.I.N.O. (Godzilla In Name Only) stuck to the monster, even to this day.

Unfortunately, Godzilla 2000 only made about $10 million at the U.S. box office thanks to a botched marketing campaign by Sony/Tri-Star. The U.S. edit actually improved the Japanese original.

CBR.com takes a look at how Tri-Star's failure "kickstarted" the Toho Godzilla "Millennium Series" of movies.

They begin it with:

This month marks the 20th anniversary for the American theatrical release of Godzilla 2000, the film that kickstarted the Millennium era for Toho Studios' iconic monster franchise. The most short-lived and quirkiest era to redefine the eponymous kaiju for a new generation, Godzilla 2000 not only marked the first Japanese produced film in the franchise after a four-year hiatus by Toho but also served as an immediate rebuttal to Hollywood first attempt to reimagine the monster for the American audience from the ground up. What resulted was a film series that took Godzilla to the strangest places in his on-screen history to date, concluding with an explosive confrontation between the classic kaiju and his maligned, American counterpart.

One prized possession I have for Godzilla 2000 is a theatrical 35 mm film trailer produced by Tri-Star. It was played at G-FEST in 2008 before the screening of Godzilla Final Wars. It resides in my refrigerator. Below is the trailer on YouTube.




If you can't take the heat...RUN!

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