Directed by Roland Emmerich

A devastating, blinding flash of white light fills the Eastern sky. Thousands of miles away, the Pacific Ocean churns, engulfing a freighter with wicked speed. Ships off both U.S. coasts capsize and are dragged into an inexplicably roiling sea, where they are instantly demolished. On another part of the globe, giant footprints plow an ominous path through miles of Panamanian forests, Tahitian villages and Jamaican beaches. What is the source of all this mysterious, far-flung mayhem. An enormous beast is on terrifying trek to the densely populated island of Manhattan, leaving a trail of ruin and panic in its awful wake and creating a ripple effect of profound and jaw-dropping destruction. Despite their often conflicting agendas and motives, a scientist, a TV reporter, a cameraman, and an enigmatic French insurance investigator, as well as the U.S. military, must join force in an odd and often uneasy alliance to unravel the mystery behind this creature and prevent it from reducing the world's greatest metropolis to a pile of rubble before it is too late. 139 min.

Godzilla, the undisputed king of movie monsters, comes to the screen once again in an eye-popping update by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, the filmmakers behind the 1996 boxoffice phenomenon, Independence Day. Emmerich directs and Devlin produces. From a screenplay by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich and story by Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio an Dean Devlin & Roland Emmerich. The film stars Matthew Broderick as the earnest scientist, Dr. Nick Tatopoulos, and Jean Reno as the enigmatic Phillipe Roache. Godzilla also stars Hank Azaria as the intrepid cameraman, Animal, and Maria Pitillo as Audrey, an inexperienced but determined reporter. Also starring are Harry Shearer as Charles Caiman, a pompous television reporter; Michael Lerner as the beleaguered mayor of New York; Doug Savant as the gritty, occasionally overwhelmed Sergeant O'Neal and Kevin Dunn as his principled, stoic superior, Colonel Hicks; Vicki Lewis as the brilliant Dr. Elsie Chapman and Arabella Field as Lucy, Audrey's best friend and Animal's patient, if vociferous, wife.

Godzilla is executive produced by Roland Emmerich, Ute Emmerich and William Fay. Robert Fried and Cary Woods are co-executive producers. Peter Winther and Kelly Van Horn are co-producers. A Centropolis Entertainment/Fried Films and Independent Pictures production, the film is a TriStar Pictures release. Cinematographer is Ueli Steiger. Production designer is Oliver Scholl. Joseph Porro is the costume designer. Visual effects supervisor is Volker Engel. Creature effects are by Tatopoulos Design, Inc. Centropolis Effects, Visionart, Sony Imageworks, and Digiscope created the digital effects. Godzilla was created and is owned by Toho Co., Ltd.

Perhaps one of the world's most famous and enduring characters, Godzilla, which Toho Co., Ltd., created in 1954 and still owns, first appeared in Japan in the 1954 release, Gojira. An American version of the film was released in the United States in 1956 as Godzilla, King of the Monsters, which starred Raymond Burr and Takashi Shimura. Godzilla went on to star in 22 films, including the recent Japanese entries, Godzilla vs. Mothra and Godzilla vs. Destoroyah. Godzilla always proved to be more than a worthy adversary, as any of resident of Tokyo at the time of his assaults can attest. It was Godzilla's monumental status (indeed, he stood 400 feet high in the first film) that intrigued Emmerich and Devlin. The filmmakers wanted to deliver a worthy follow up to Independence Day, which established new worldwide boxoffice records.

"Because of the phenomenal reaction to Independence Day, Roland and I were fortunate enough to travel around the world to promote it. It seemed that in every country, we were asked the same question: how do you follow up a movie like Independence Day%3f It was a really tough question to answer. The only thing that seemed remotely in the ballpark was Godzilla. It afforded us the opportunity to do something bigger, wilder and more amazing than we'd ever attempted before," Devlin says.

"The challenge of Godzilla is that when people think of it, they immediately think of something that has a great deal of nostalgic fun but is not to be taken seriously. For us, that posed an intriguing question: How do we reinvent Godzilla%3f" Devlin adds. "We feel that only with the advances in special effects technology that exist today can we do that."

Emmerich calls Godzilla "the ultimate monster movie. We hope to push the limits of all the visual effects available. The technology is changing every year, and in every movie we use new tools. In many ways, this film was actually more complicated than Independence Day. It was a huge undertaking."

Production on the film, which is set primarily in New York City, began in and around Manhattan in May 1997 and then returned to Los Angeles, which doubled for the Big Apple. The filmmakers chose New York because its urban landscape, with its towering skyscrapers and world-famous locales from Wall Street to Central Park, provided a backdrop befitting a creature of such epic proportions. "We needed a location as big as Godzilla and, after Tokyo, only New York has that kind of scale and drama," notes Fay. Emmerich adds that "there are certain cities and skylines you can cheat by using other locations, but New York is definitely not one of them. It's such a well-known, American landmark."

This is not to say that filming in New York was an easy endeavor. Specifically, the city only allowed the production, which shot mostly at night, to clear the streets for filming after 8 p.m. All the cameras, lights, trucks, related gear and equipment, personnel and assorted hordes of extras had to evaporate by 6 a.m. A standard film day lasts roughly 12 hours; the city-imposed restrictions, coupled with the short nights typical of spring in New York, could have been terrible setbacks had Emmerich and team not been so organized and efficient. Almost every sequence filmed in and around New York required several immense lighting rigs, assorted cranes that skimmed the sky, a plethora of cameras positioned at all altitudes and a carefully choreographed mГЄlГ©e of cars and extras. A scene at New York's Fulton Fish Market required seven cameras to capture the scene and hundreds of extras. A scene in Wall Street where Godzilla's "approach" incites hysteria and havoc featured 500 fleeing day-players and a phalanx of hydraulically-rigged cars that "jumped" in response to Godzilla's powerful footsteps.

While Godzilla is the film's most conspicuous star, his human co-stars are equally crucial to the success of the film. "I think the biggest mistake that most effects movies make is that they forget about the characters, which is why we try to write characters and cast actors that the audience really cares about," says Devlin. "Otherwise, there is no impact from all the amazing effects around them. Fortunately, with the help of our casting director, April Webster, we've been able to assemble an amazing ensemble of artists." Both Emmerich and Devlin have been longtime fans of Matthew Broderick and Jean Reno, and Godzilla afforded them the opportunity to finally work with both of these talented actors.

"I liked Dean and Roland very much, had met with them and enjoyed the script," says Broderick. "I like to try different film genres. Although I've done films like War Games and Ladyhawke, which had a lot of effects, or Glory, which was massive but in a different way, I'd never done a movie like Godzilla before." Although Broderick admits that he probably never saw an entire Godzilla film, "I certainly grew up on them, and I don't think anyone wanted to make a tongue-in-cheek, looking-down-on-them kind of thing. We wanted it to be exciting and scary, but still, you have to have a sense of humor about this enormous lizard knocking over buildings in New York." A Manhattan resident himself, Broderick particularly enjoyed shooting at home, even if it meant disrupting the city a bit.

While the scope of the film certainly impressed Jean Reno ("These were the biggest sets I'd ever seen. Even bigger than Mission Impossible"), the film's characters and its director drew him to the project. "I liked the humanity between the characters and the humor to the story. A lot of it came from Roland. I liked working with him because he is somebody who has a real point of view. To work with someone like that-with a definite perspective but who gives us room to explore-is very nice for an actorŠ very comfortable."

Hank Azaria was cast in the part of Animal because, says Devlin, "When we met with him, we immediately felt that this was a guy who could create something completely different from what we had in mind and bring a whole lot more to the role than what was on the page. He's just a wonderful actor who comes to the project with an enormous amount of energy and love for Godzilla, because he is a Godzilla fan from way back," Devlin says.

"It's true. For some reason, the Godzilla movies were on every Saturday morning in New York, where I grew up," Azaria says. "When Godzilla vs. King Kong came out, that was a big deal when I was growing up. I remember actively worrying about who would win...My character is a very New York, Italian, sarcastic cameraman. He's one of those guys who will do whatever it takes to get the shot, so he's always running around, trying to photograph Godzilla. Of course, most people are running away from Godzilla, but I'm running toward him. A lot of times, hundreds of extras were running from Godzilla, looking behind them as I was running forward. So, I was constantly smashed by all the extras running forward and looking back. I almost died many times. One of the extras in New York really barreled into me as he was running away. I got banged pretty nicely in the face. That got the biggest laugh that day, and we got it on film."

Azaria discovered that he possessed a skill which helped him follow, photograph and otherwise react to a giant, if invisible, monster. A longtime member of the animated series, "The Simpsons," for which he gives voice to several zany characters, Azaria had ample experience acting with imaginary co-stars. "For some of the actors, in the beginning, it was a little weird acting to nothing. But it wasn't for me. I wondered why this wasn't a problem for me, but I realized that on 'The Simpsons,' that's all we do. We're always screaming and yelling and being frightened of nothing. It seemed normal to me because I do it all the time on 'The Simpsons.'" Of course, reacting to a giant reptile stalking the streets of New York made for uniquely absurd moments. "Most of the time, we just had a lot of production assistants walking around with X's for eyeline purposes and people on megaphones announcing what Godzilla was doing. That got a little silly. 'And he's ANGRY. And he's WALKING.' We started making stuff up, like, 'We're not sure WHAT he's doing, he's HARD to read. Now he's CRYING. Now he's impressed with your NECKTIE,'" Azaria recalls.

Of course, the biggest casting coup was Godzilla, who, much to the chagrin of onlookers and New York City media, usually appeared in the form of three skinny guys from California carrying a pole with a reflector on its end, a video camera and a surveying tool poised on a tripod. This odd assortment of equipment helped "match move specialist" Joe Jackman, under Volker Engel's guidance, plot Godzilla's presence. "In order to put Godzilla in the movie, we had to know where the camera was in every frame," says Jackman. "To do that, we figured out where everything was by actually taking 3D measurements of everything and then comparing that to the 2D information in the frame. We could mathematically figure out where the camera was, based on reconciling between the 3D and 2D information."

Volker Engel adds that Godzilla features much more computer animation because of the creature's new abilities. "This Godzilla is a very animal-like, fast-moving, fierce creature. With key frame animation, you're 100% free; we can have the creature really move. To give it that really strange creature-feel in terms of motion, you really have to use key frame. We discovered that in the CG realm, for example, we can go a lot closer to the creature than we'd anticipated and it looks really goodŠ really detailed." Tatopoulos worked closely with the computer wizards at Centropolis Effects early in the process to exactly establish the creature's movements and to synchronize them with those of animatronic models.