Designing Ready Player One's Mechagodzilla

Most of the licensed characters in Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One are computer-generated extras, showing up in a shot or two without comment. One of the biggest exceptions, both literally and figuratively, is Mechagodzilla, who corporate baddie Nolan Sorrento pilots in the final battle. It takes on the Iron Giant and a RX-78-2 Gundam in grand fashion, spewing blue flames and launching finger missiles as Alan Silvestri’s fantastic Ifukube cover blares.

Mechagodzilla also stands out because it has an all-new appearance, in contrast to every other licensed character in the film. If you guessed notoriously-fickle Toho had something to do with that, you’d be right. After a piece of concept art bearing his signature started making the rounds online, Toho Kingdom staff member Joshua Sudomerski contacted Jared Krichevsky to ask about the process of creating the latest version of the magnificent machine. Read what he learned after the jump.

King Ghidorah to be a Mo-Cap Triple Threat?

Godzilla: King of the Monsters director Michael Dougherty loves practical effects. Look no further than Krampus, which eschewed CGI for nearly all its holiday horrors, for a display of his devotion to the old ways. Godzilla is a different beast, however, and it remains unclear how much Dougherty has been able to do in-camera while making his first blockbuster film. So here’s some promising news from TheWrap: King Ghidorah will be portrayed by a motion-capture team including Jason Liles, last seen as the albino gorilla George in Rampage.

J.J. Abrams Drags Us Back Inside the Cloverfield Mystery Box

10 Cloverfield Lane was a “blood relative.” The Cloverfield Paradox promised we would finally “find out why.” Now J.J. Abrams, Hollywood’s resident trickster god, is claiming that his company Bad Robot is “developing a true, dedicated Cloverfield sequel,” to be released in theaters “very soon.” The old saying doesn’t get as far as “fool me thrice,” but maybe this time there’s reason to believe him.

Dai-Kaiju Mono on Blu-Ray from Sentai Filmworks

With Crunchyroll simulcasting Ultraman, Funimation and Netflix bringing Toho’s latest Godzilla films to America a few months after they hit Japanese theaters, and Hollywood cranking out its own kaiju nearly every year, it can be easy to forget how long it used to take to see most of this stuff. Unless, of course, you’re one of those depraved, standardless people willing to devour anything that has a big monster in it. Then you’re probably joining me in celebrating Sentai Filmworks’ August 14^th release of Dai-Kaiju Mono, Minoru Kawasaki’s 2016 epic starring New Japan Pro-Wrestling stars Kota Ibushi and Minoru Suzuki.