Any director’s dream would come true when their film received a positive review from Steven Spielberg, one of the most commercially successful directors in history. The latter’s review, however, devastated Gareth Edwards, the man behind the 2014 blockbuster Godzilla.
After a demanding press tour, Edwards broke down in tears upon reading the Academy Award-winning director’s review of his 2014 Godzilla reboot. The film followed the journey of a US Navy sailor who got caught up in a long-running conflict between Godzilla and two parasitic creatures known as MUTOs as he tried to get home to his family.
Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliette Binoche, Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Ken Watanabe are among the cast members. The success of the movie prompted Legendary Pictures to move forward with sequels and a joint film franchise.
How Gareth Edwards Responded to Godzilla Review by Steven Spielberg
There was a lot of anticipation before Godzilla hit theaters, and Gareth Edwards had a lot of pressure to do justice to the iconic monster in a successful revival. Thus, the director was obviously on cloud nine when he saw Steven Spielberg’s review of his 2014 monster film, which had gotten positive feedback from both reviewers and fans.
As Edwards spoke on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast to promote his latest sci-fi epic The Creator (which opens today, September 29), he reflected on his time working on Godzilla, recalling a very significant incident at the end of the press tour.
So it was a surprise email from Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson that featured a video of Spielberg, himself reviewing Godzilla that made the filmmaker immensely emotional:
“I recognize the email address, it’s Peter Jackson’s email, and I’m like ‘Peter Jackson’s emailing?’. And I look and there’s a video attachment, I open up the video- I’m in a nightclub, so it’s like(Mimicking dance music) and I look at the video, and there’s a guy with sort of grey hair and a beard, and I’m thinking ‘Is this Gandalf?’, and I don’t know what’s going on, it’s really weird…”
Gareth Edwards ‘Collapsed’ After Seeing Steven Spielberg’s Godzilla Review
Steven Speilberg‘s voice was immediately recognized when Gareth Edwards put on the headphones. In addition, the former had just finished seeing Godzilla when Peter Jackson began to record him using his phone’s camera. And Jackson was talking about it, as Edwards told Josh Horowitz on his Happy Sad Confused podcast:
“I know Gareth and he’ll really want to hear this, Let me film you [Steven Speilberg] and send it to him [Gareth Edwards].”
The British director, whose first film, Monsters (2010) received wide acclaim, continued:
“Spielberg started speaking about Godzilla, and it was nice to hear it, and I just started crying. I literally just collapsed. I hardly ever cry, it just felt like that’s why I did it, all the pain of whatever it was, was just worth it for that little video clip. It meant the absolute world to me.”
With a $160 million production budget, Warner Bros. Pictures’s Godzilla exceeded expectations at the box office, earning $529 million globally.
Why was Edwards chosen by Legendary to helm Godzilla? In a Warner Bros. video, the director discussed Steven Spielberg, the impact of the first film, and why the audience should receive “visual foreplay” before seeing Godzilla:
“In terms of Godzilla, it was really a case of let’s take this seriously, let’s make the most realistic thing we can and also, let’s hark back to that style of filmmaking that I grew up with and a lot of the people we worked with grew up with.”
According to Edwards,
“Those early Spielberg movies” are examples of this kind of filmmaking because they “get the balance right with the suspense, along with the action and the CGI.”
The director said that it was “very easy to get seduced by the visual effects” and that he worked to make this movie more evenly balanced. He further added:
“It’s one big visual foreplay, I think, in terms of the movie, in terms of trying to give the audience goose bumps when they watch this stuff.”
His recently released latest science fiction thriller The Creator (September 29, 2023), is ready to wow audiences once again. The film stars Gemma Chan, John David Washington, and Ken Watanabe, among others.
Godzilla is available to rent on Apple TV.
Source: Happy Sad Confused; Warner Bros.
