35 years of Summer Blockbusters - May 20th

May 20, 1998 - Twelve years ago Sony owned Tri-Star studios suffered one of the biggest financial disasters in movie history with the release of Godzilla. The movie was sold with a massive marketing campaign featuring the tagline "Size Does Matter" and only showing a small piece of the monster. The studio worked hard to keep the actual design of the monster under wraps until the release of the film, which impacted all the licensing rights. The studio rushed the filming to meet the Memorial Day weekend release date and did not test screen the film. The number crunchers at Tri-Star were projecting an opening weekend gross of $90 million to beat out the record set by Lost World: Jurassic Park 2 the year before.

The film opened with a dud. The critics gave it scathing reviews. The monster looked like a big lizard and the last half of the script was a copy of the raptor scene in Jurassic Park, with baby Godzillas chasing Mathew Broderick in Madison Square Garden. Broderick was unbelievable in the lead as the scientist who tracks Godzilla. the film suffered from it's own massive build up and hype and when it only took in $55 million on its first weekend it was instantly deemed a failure. With a production budget of $125 million and  a marketing budget estimated at $50 million the film was a financial failure during its initial run with ticket sales of $136 million. It was more popular overseas and on home video.

Warner Bros. is planning another version for 2012.
At The Movie House rating ** stars