It may not come as a complete surprise, but it has been formally announced that Gareth Edwards is exiting the Godzilla sequel…
Gareth Edwards rose to fame after directing the indie hit Monsters, making a small budget go far in its tale of a trek through an alien-infested jungle. It was a gig that got him the chair for directing the large-scale (literally) Godzilla reworking. The finished film being savaged by critics (in our opinion, rightly so) for being heavy on special-effects but nonsensical in its story and wasteful of its cast. Therefore Edwards was something of a surprise choice for helming one of the most anticipated movies of 2016: the upcoming Star Wars: Rogue One.
It had previously been announced Edwards would return for the Godzilla sequel – despite the critical response, the film did maker a lot of money so a follow-up was inevitable. However there were also many rumours that he would not end up directing that sequel, instead favouring other, smaller projects, and it was confirmed today, first by industry site Deadline, that there’s been an ‘amicable’ decision for him to pass the baton and the movie itself was formally pushed back to a 2019 date earlier this week.
Godzilla himself will be kept busy. There’s the return of the eastern, stop-motion version of the character with Shin Godzilla (aka Godzilla Resurgence – see the trailer below) and also a Godzilla Vs King Kong project now slated for a spring date in 2020.
