Unmade animated Godzilla film
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An untitled animated Godzilla film was planned for release in 1988, but was never produced.
History
In 1987, Variety reported that Henry G. Saperstein, head of UPA and a frequent collaborator with Toho on the Godzilla franchise, was currently planning production on an animated film featuring Godzilla to be released in 1988. Saperstein told the magazine that he was producing an animated film because a state-of-the-art live action Godzilla film would cost $25,000,000 and be far too expensive. Saperstein planned to maximize cost-effectiveness by performing pre- and post-production of the film in the United States and doing the animation in Japan. Saperstein also stated that he would be reassembling several of the UPA animators and crew who had worked on UPA's Oscar-winning cartoons in the 1950s. Isao Matsuoka, the president of Toho at the time, told Variety that in addition to Saperstein's animated film, the script for a new live action Godzilla film, which would ultimately be Godzilla vs. Biollante, was being written and was planned for a 1988 release as well. For whatever reason, Saperstein's film never materialized.[1] The "Godzilla's American Cousin" article by Stuart Galbraith IV in FILMFAX #45 mentions an animated Godzilla movie and "a live action film that would have pitted Godzilla against a Gargantua" as among "several projects" which Toho and Saperstein tried putting together.[2] Saperstein would go on to head the negotiations with Hollywood executives that would lead to Sony Pictures Entertainment acquiring the rights to produce an American Godzilla film in 1992.
Gallery
Mention of the unmade film in Variety
Mention of the unmade film in Variety
FILMFAX #45 (June-July 1994) page mentioning an "animated Godzilla feature" unmade project (center-bottom)
Trivia
- This film would have been the second animated feature based on the Godzilla franchise to be produced by Henry G. Saperstein, after Hanna-Barbera's Godzilla.
- An animated Godzilla film would not be produced until 2017. Titled GODZILLA: Planet of the Monsters, it was the first installment of a trilogy from Polygon Pictures, released to theaters and home video in Japan by Toho and available to stream internationally on Netflix.
References
This is a list of references for Unmade animated Godzilla film. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]
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