Ken Watanabe stars in horror film that opens on May 16th.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures – the studios behind the smash hits like 300 (2007), Inception (2010), and The Dark Knight trilogy (2005-2012) – will debut their next big-budget blockbuster in theaters next week: Godzilla, co-starring Japanese Oscar-nominee Ken Watanabe.
Watanabe is at the head of an ensemble cast that features some major names, including Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olson (next year’s Avengers: Age of Ultron), Bryan Cranston (“Breaking Bad”), Oscar-nominees David Strathairn (The Bourne Ultimatum) and Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine), and Oscar-winner Juliette Binoche (The English Patient). Watanabe himself is an Oscar-nominee, too, for 2003’s The Last Samurai.
Releasing in commemoration of the original Gojira’s release in 1954, Godzilla will reboot the series and update it to modern times. The movie tells “a powerful story of human courage and reconciliation in the face of titanic forces of nature, when the awe-inspiring Godzilla rises to restore balance as humanity stands defenseless.”
“Our film doesn’t tell this story from an omnipotent perspective,” Godzilla producer Thomas Tull explains. “In the midst of this crisis are people whose lives are irrevocably changed by it. These aren’t super heroes, but regular human beings caught in extreme circumstances, which made casting such a vital component of our film.”
Watanabe’s character is most certainly an ordinary man caught up in an extraordinary situation. He plays Serizawa, a Japanese scientist who has spent his entire life searching for Godzilla, hoping to find a cave of evidence that the mythical creature exists. Needless to say, Serizawa gets all that and more – more, perhaps, than he ever wished for.
His quest goes deeper than scientific curiosity,” Watanabe explained, in a press release. “He is concerned about the kinds of terror that could exist in the world, and has his own theories about what he calls the ‘Alpha Predator’ and the role it plays on the planet.”
“‘Godzilla’ is the benchmark of monster movies,” says Gareth Edwards, the film’s director, who said that he grew up on the old Japanese Godzilla films released by Toho Studios. It was the iconic nature of Godzilla that inspired him to helm the monster’s latest cinematic excursion.
“I feel that Japan and, really, the entire world, are facing similar challenges today as we were at the time the first film was made,” Watanabe said. “Godzilla cannot be separated from the nuclear element, and serves as an urgent reminder that we have to look to the future and think about what kind of world we want to have. So, when I read the script, I was impressed that Gareth’s film maintains Godzilla’s connection to the consequences of trying to harness forces we barely understand.”
Godzilla hits screens in North America and other international territories on May 16. Below is the film’s theatrical trailer: