July 2000 "Godzilla Week" Photo Surfaces

by Armand Vaquer

Above, gathering in the Hall of Administration before the "Godzilla Week"
 ceremony are (left to right) Armand Vaquer, Masaharu Ina of 
Toho L.A., Andrew Wong and J. D. Lees.  Photo courtesy of Andrew Wong.

Back in July 2000, the second G-Fest in Southern California was about to be held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.  A month later, Godzilla 2000, the first Japanese Godzilla movie to be released nationwide in theaters since Godzilla 1985.

To garner some publicity for both, the idea was to have the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors declare the week of G-Fest "Godzilla Week." Toho Co., Ltd. was enthusiastic over this idea and even shipped over (at their expense) a Godzilla 2000 event suit for the ceremony to be held at the Hall of Administration.

Unfortunately, Jaime Geller, a publicist at Sony Entertainment, horned in and thinking she knew better than anyone about what constitutes good publicity, nixed the appearance of the event suit saying it was too small and, "It detracts from the grandeur of Godzilla." (Sony had the U.S. theatrical rights to Godzilla 2000, which included publicity.) Once fans heard the news of the cancellation of the event suit, the "fit hit the shan." Geller received many angry messages from irate fans.

The ceremony went ahead anyway without the event suit and, as a result of Sony's dumb move, no publicity was generated. But, at least Toho got a nice scroll (below) out of it and it hangs somewhere at Toho in Japan.

What prompted this post was the above photograph that, until tonight, I didn't know existed. It was sent to me by Andrew Wong.  Thanks, Andrew!

Check out Andrew's GForever website!

"Godzilla x Megaguirus: G Annihilation Strategy" Movie Book

by Armand Vaquer

Above, the cover.

In January 2001, Japanese publisher Shogakukan published their TV-kun photo book on the 2000 Toho feature, Godzilla x Megaguirus: G Annihilation Strategy (ISBN 4-09-101475-5).

The movie premiered in Japan on November 3, 2000 at the Tokyo International Film Festival.  Its initial release was on December 16, 2000.  It was directed by Masaaki Tezuka.

Above, the photo of the "Godzilla Week" ceremony that appeared in the "Godzilla x Megaguirus" Shogakukan movie book.

Shogakukan has a history of publishing high-quality photo books that are loaded with rare photos from the movies and production stills.  This one was no exception.  It contains photos of props, monster suits, wardrobe, miniatures and statistics, besides scenes from the movie.

Above, the "Godzilla Week" proclamation scroll by the Board of Supervisors.

One item of interest (at least to me) included in the book was a group photo of the "Godzilla Week" ceremony that was held in July 2000 at the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration.  The ceremony was held at the Board of Supervisors meeting and a proclamation declaring "Godzilla Week" was sponsored by Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich and signed by all the Board members.

The idea for the ceremony was to draw media attention to G-FEST 2000 (to be held that week in Hollywood) and the opening of Godzilla 2000 the following month.  Toho even shipped over an event suit for the occasion, but Jaime Geller of Sony/Tri-Star Pictures nixed the appearance with the flimsy excuse that Sony/Tri-Star had the "publicity rights" to Godzilla 2000 and the suit "detracted from the grandeur of Godzilla."  It was more likely that she wanted to control this fan-generated event with the usual "Hollywood knows best" attitude. As it turned out, Sony/Tri-Star was conspicuously absent from the ceremony.  They sent no representatives.  Thankfully, we had the full support of Toho's Los Angeles office.

Once fans learned of the "sabotage" of the event due to the cancellation of the suit's appearance (we went ahead with the ceremony anyway), the "fit hit the shan."  Fans raised holy hell with many irate emails directed to Sony/Tri-Star.  Had the suit been allowed to appear, it may have helped a little with the boxoffice take of Godzilla 2000 (it earned a measly $10 million) as people would have been able to see the new Godzilla "Millennium" design up close for the first time.  Sony's saving grace was that they provided hundreds of Godzilla 2000 cloisonne promo pins and mini-posters to hand out at the event and at G-FEST.

Above, my autographed group photo of the "Godzilla Week" ceremony.  Photo courtesy of the office of Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich.

The Godzilla x Megaguirus: G Annihilation Strategy book is currently out-of-print, but it can still be found at eBay and some Japanese online bookseller websites.  At the time of publication, I bought two of them (one for myself and one as a "thank-you" gift to Supervisor Antonovich).  It is amazing that over 12 years have passed since "Godzilla Week" and the publication of the movie book.