In 1998, TriStar Pictures produced a remake set in New York City, starring Matthew Broderick; the film's name was simply Godzilla. Despite negative reviews and negative Godzilla fan reaction, the film was a financial success, taking in nearly $380 million worldwide and spawned an animated television series called Godzilla: The Series.

Name

Godzilla's name was spelled in kanji as (呉爾羅), but for sound only.

There is disagreement as to how the monster's name should be pronounced. Purists use the Japanese pronunciation 1 listen, but most favor the Anglicized rendering of its name, 2 (with the first syllable pronounced like the word "god", and the rest rhyming with the last two syllables of "gorilla"). When Godzilla was created (and Japanese-to-English transliteration was less familiar), it is likely that the kana representing the second syllable was misinterpreted as 3; in the Hepburn romanization system, Godzilla's name would have been rendered as "Godzira."

Appearances

Godzilla is the primary character of all of the Godzilla films, though there are numerous different incarnations of the monster. The silver screen is not the only place Godzilla has appeared; there have been literary sources that have expanded the universe of Godzilla. The Godzilla universe, and the character itself have also starred in comic books, manga, Japanese television and two cartoons.

Films

main: List of films featuring Godzilla

Showa series

The Showa-era Godzilla films were the first of the film series. In total, there are 15 Showa-era films, making them amount to over half the total Godzilla movies currently in existence.

The first film was simply titled Godzilla. In this movie, Godzilla was portrayed as a terrible and destructive monster. Following the success of Godzilla, Toho started filming a sequel. In this sequel film, a second Godzilla was set up to fight another giant monster, named Anguirus. This second film started a trend for Godzilla movies, where Godzilla would fight other giant monsters. In this film as well, Godzilla was portrayed as a villain. This portrayal would continue for two more movies. In his fifth movie, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, Godzilla took the role of a hero. From that point onto the end of the Showa series, Godzilla stayed a hero, protecting Japan against attacks from other monsters, aliens, etc. At one point, Godzilla even adopted a son, Minilla, in Son of Godzilla, who would make appearances in later Showa-era films.

The Showa-era movies played on a lot of fears and interests of people during the time period in which they were made. For instance, Godzilla was a movie designed to warn people about the use and testing of nuclear weapons. Likewise, Godzilla vs. Hedorah was designed to carry a message about the dangers of pollution. As space exploration and the Space Age were extremely popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many of Godzilla's movies revolved around Godzilla fighting alien monsters, or involved an alien invasion in some shape or form. For instance, in the movie Destroy All Monsters, an alien race had managed to take control of all of Earth's monsters, who were eventually freed from their control, and destroyed the aliens who had put them under control.