Coming after Roland Emmerich‘s missed opportunity, Godzilla will return to the big screen next summer and while expectations normally wouldn’t be of note, Warner Bros. has assembled quite a strong batch of talent for the tentpole. With direction from Gareth Edwards, who made a convincing, worthwhile sci-fi film with the miniscule-budget Monsters, the varied ensemble includes Bryan Cranston, Juliette Binoche, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.
Like his last feature, Edwards is going for a realistic bent, telling USA Today, “I’ve just got a secret fantasy—well, it’s not very secret anymore—about living in a world where there’s fantastical things like giant creatures and what it would really be like and trying to take it seriously. And there’s no bigger or better icon than Godzilla.” He adds that, “To me, he’s like a force of nature, like the wrath of God or vengeance for the way we’ve behaved,” Edwards says. “If this really happened, it would be like Sept. 11th. I want it to be epic. I want to get the hairs on the back of your neck up.”
We’re hoping Edwards succeeds with an epic scale, but more importantly, a convincing story and characters (unlike a certain similarly themed Guillermo del Toro tentpole last summer). The first promising trailer and poster can be seen below, as well as attached to The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug this weekend. And yes, that’s “Requiem” from 2001: A Space Odyssey, which can be heard below in full.
Godzilla opens on May 16th.