Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1124104
G O D Z I L L A : K I N G O F T H E M O N S T E R S | P E R S P E C T I V E 4 1 With the success of Marvel's superhero universe of films, every other Hollywood motion picture studio became compelled to create a filmic universe of their own if they didn't already have one. 20th Century Fox already had their DC Comics series, and Sony had the Spider-Man franchise. Universal had recently decided to create one from their in-house collection of movie creatures and monsters from their 1930s and '40s films: Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, etc. Legendary Studios grabbed King Kong and Toho's classic collection, including Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan and Ghidorah to create their own monsterverse. Writer-director Michael Dougherty had a pseudo- historical construct in mind for this monster tale: In the early days of life on Earth, the great monsters ruled the planet as an integral element of nature's ancient balance. The human societies that evolved created their cultures in the shadow of these monsters, developing a symbiotic relationship with them that was both of being in service to and in worship of them. The monsters were their gods. Using ancient cultural artifacts and iconography as inspiration, the film's global cultures each created a visual language featuring the god monsters, sometimes portrayed as fearsome, sometimes as benevolent. Michael added the concept that somehow cross- pollination between cultures occurred as they developed, resulting in visual themes being repeated cross-culturally in art and architecture throughout the ancient world. A. THE TINY SPECK OF A SILHOUETTED FIGURE STEPS INTO THE LIGHT OF GODZILLA'S LAIR, A RADIOACTIVE SUNKEN RUIN IN A DEEP OCEAN CAVE. CONCEPT ILLUSTRATION BY CRAIG SELLARS.