Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 12:45 pmAfter seeing Banno talk about this at G-Fest, I honestly just think he's gone insane. He's the only person that's mentioned making this movie, and he doesn't even have any funding for it, he just had permission to make it if he could make $10 mill, which he said he would be "trying" to get if he can convince the Toho people in LA to give it to him. I don't even think hes pitched the idea to any of the head honchos yet. I honestly don't think this is gonna be made. At G-Fest, Ishii-san who works at Toho didn't even say anything about it, nor hear any big plans to make it, he just talked about the Tidal Wave remake they are doing. It seems like Banno just has a dream project that he isn't gonna be able to do. Also, when he went through the whole story during his Q&A, it really didn't sound like it'd be a good film. (SPOILER?) Like Godzilla getting the inspiration to beat Deathra by looking at the 9/11 monument while Deathra is killing him during the fight in New York was pretty lame sounding, as well as well.... the whole plot. The plot was like Godzilla vs. Hedorah and Mothra 96 combined with a weird showdown in South America (which he FLIES to)). Besides, if its an IMAX movie, chances are it will never be out on DVD or anything and we won't be able to see it. I really don't see his pitch for this film going very well at all.
And no, nobody said anything about Godzilla being fully CGI, but he DID say he wanted him to fly again. To me, the only thing that sounds good about this project is the chance to see kaiju on an IMAX screen. I love GvsH and I thought Banno did a brilliant job on that movie, but this one really doesn't seem um... good... and the chances of it being made aren't realistic to me. But maybe I'm just skeptical.
And as for Banno's IMAX career, he has put out some popular IMAX documentaries in Japan about whales and things of that nature. Nothing too different from the IMAX documentaries we see over here.