Godzilla may be one of the biggest, baddest monsters around, but director Gareth Edwards and his cast told fans at Comic-Con on Saturday that his upcoming reimagined movie is as much an art film as a summer blockbuster.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, a lead in the film who was on stage in Hall H the previous day for "Kick-Ass 2," credited Edwards' approach for making Godzilla as a "big-budget art film."
“What Gareth brings is an intimacy,” Taylor-Johnson said.
Edwards showed a sneak peek of the movie, which showed gripping footage of Cranston running through udnerground tunnels and a thundering monster destroying New York.
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Elizabeth Olsen, a darling of Sundance up to now who plays a nurse and mother, said that she expected “Godzilla” to feel different but instead it “felt like an indie smaller production."
Edwards explained that while some directors distinguish between their passion projects and summer spectacles, he embraced Godzilla as both.
“You have to view this as a passion project, an artistic film,” he told the crowd.
That approach sold Bryan Cranston, who was at first reluctant to make the movie because it was “so huge.” Then he watched Edwards’ “Monsters.”
“There was a character-driven component you felt for these people that was great,” Cranston said. “He transformed Godzilla.”
Godzilla was Cranston’s favorite monster growing up because he was unapologetic about his destructive behavior – unlike King Kong. Cranston, like most boys, wanted to see things blow up.
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And rest assured fans, the footage shown on Saturday featured plenty of monsters and explosions – in an indie kind of way.
Legendary and Warner Brothers also introduced “The Seventh Son,” a big-budget fantasy adventure starring Jeff Bridges and lots and lots of dragons, scheduled for release in January.
The trailer featured grey-haired Bridges with a goatee and and an odd manner of speaking, and his young charge (played by Ben Barnes) running from huge monsters, ducking dragons, and leaping off a steep cliff into the ocean.
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Bridges is a witch-hunter – the seventh son of the seventh son – who faces his enemy and ex-lover in Julianne Moore, the witch. Also in the film is Kit Harington and Antje Traue.
Director Sergei Bodrov had a heavy Russian accent in explaining the film, which seemed distracting until Bridges weighed in with a show-stopping quote from Russian poet Alexander Solzhenitsyn which went in part:
“The line between good and evil cuts through every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart.”