Movies I Wish I Had Seen in 2020 (Part 3)

 Movies I Wish I Had Seen in 2020 (Part 3: Book Adaptations & Originals)

I’m back for more made-up 2020 movies! Check out parts one and two for my other pitches on what would have been great to see in theaters this past year. This time I have book adaptations on the brain, as well as some original ideas.

Let’s start with an adaptation of the first book in the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, The Gunslinger. You might be thinking, hey, wait a minute, I thought they already made a Dark Tower movie in 2017? That movie functioned as a sort-of-sequel to the books, which only confused fans and alienated audiences who had no idea what the books were all about. I just want a straight adaptation of The Gunslinger to start off the film series, which will be followed with the superior sequel The Drawing of the Three in 2022, the pretty-good-but-not-as-good threequel The Wastelands in 2024, then we skip the majority of the fourth book, which is all a flashback anyway, and save that for the cancelled TV series that ties in to the movies (book 4 would function better as its own thing, I think) then we do Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla in 2026, Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah for 2028, and conclude the decade-long run with the final installment, simply called The Dark Tower, in 2030, which also sees the release of a mini-series adapting the spin-off book The Wind Through the Key Hole.

Another book adaptation I’ve been craving is Raptor Red by Robert T. Bakker. I was hoping after the huge success of Jurassic World in 2015 that there’d be a huge influx of new dinosaur movies for the rest of the decade, but sadly, it was not to be, and fair enough, because Jurassic World was more a monster movie than a dinosaur movie anyway, and I love monster movies, too, which there were quite a few of this past decade. Bakker is a paleontologist, and he applied his expertise to a fictional narrative about a Utahraptor living in the early Cretaceous period. While the story may be imaginary, Bakker’s science was up-to-date for the time, and it came out beautifully on the pages. A miniseries might be better, but a two-hour film adaptation of the story with the highest-quality visual effects available would be every dinosaur fan’s dream. It would be everything the pitiful 2013 Walking with Dinosaurs 3D Movie should have been, and it could even top Jurassic Park for most-realistic dinosaurs depicted in film.

Recently I watched Moana for the first time and found it pretty enjoyable. Then, not long after, I started reading a book I hadn’t read since grade five, Call it Courage by Armstrong Sperry, published in 1940. I remembered liking it, I could recall the basic plot (young boy from a small island in the Pacific becomes caught in a storm, stranded on an island, and has to make a canoe to escape), but what I had failed to remember was just how many references it had to Maui and Moana. It made me think we need to see a film adaptation of this story for modern audiences. It was made into a TV movie by Disney in the 1970’s, but I think either an animated version (perhaps in the tradition of Moana), or even a live-action version, would be incredible. The story even has positive messages, two cute sidekick animals (a dog and an albatross), and would be fit for the whole family, not just kids.

Rapid fire, here are a few other ideas I had:

- An original sci-fi film in the vein of The Thing or The Fly. I just love being creeped out by that type of body horror creature feature stuff, and when done with practical effects it’s even better (this year’s Colour out of Space was a pretty good addition to this sub-genre)

- An adaptation of the Portal video game directed by Dan Tractenberg (who broke into Hollywood with a pretty good Portal fan film) maybe starring Daisy Ridley. Or, it could be directed by my original choice who has worked with her before, J.J. Abrams, but NOT written by Abrams. 

 - I know in the past I’ve said I’m done with Terminator, but one more entry in the series would be a nice way to conclude it, if done right. I’d want it to be a low-budget horror standalone story set in the future. While I’m on the topic…

- Robocop vs. the Terminator. It’s been done in comics and video games, but let’s see it on film!

A big original idea I formulated with my cousin was around the time Eddie Van Halen passed away, but this idea was in good taste, not meant to be offensive. What if there was a new rock-and-roll-horror franchise called Eddie Van Helsing? The hero would be a rock band front liner and a monster hunter! His guitar would be in the shape of a cross, and it would fire wooden stakes. He’d have the classic rock apparel, and his nemesis, Drake-ula, would be trying to spread the evil of rap music to the rock world, but it’d be Eddie Van Helsing’s mission to stop him!  We had a bunch of other little ideas, but unfortunately I didn’t write them down fast enough and they’ve slipped away into the aether.

Finally, I have an amazing, insane pitch for a Clifford the Big Red Dog trilogy. Full credit for this goes to my cousin, who was inspired after I shared the first teaser trailer for the upcoming live-action Clifford film—which, frankly, looks terrifying as it is—but this trilogy pitch is quite something. Here we go…

In part 1, simply called “Clifford the Big Red Dog”…Emily’s school teacher is also the leader of the occult and begins teaching her the powers of Cthulhu. One night she accidentally summons Clifford. As dark powers begin confronting the town, her and Clifford work together to fight them off. This finally culminates with her and Clifford stopping her teacher after he is consumed by madness and attempts to bring Cthulhu to the mortal plane. In the battle, Emily is briefly killed, before being resurrected by the spirt of vengeance... that’s right, Emily becomes the ghost rider. With this power they are able to defeat her teacher and banish him to hell.

Part 2: “Clifford the Blood Red Dog” (note the title difference). Clifford and Emily continue to fight against the dark forces and return any lingering demons to the depths. However, Emily is only an 8 year old girl and her mental state is quickly declining as a result of the spirit of vengeance. She finally breaks and instead aims to slay the world. Clifford must stop this and is forced to kill Emily. Her death then opens a portal to the underworld, freeing all the darkest creatures of hell.

And finally, in part 3, called “Comrade Big Red”: Clifford is visited by the spirit of Stalin who informs him that the ghost of Hitler is attempting to build an army of Nazi ghosts (because what third movie isn’t complete without Nazis for villains). Clifford makes a deal with the devil that they will return Emily’s soul in exchange for all of those who escaped. The devil then gives Clifford the power of the spirit of vengeance to empower his champion. Stalin accepts the spirit of vengeance to bring equal justice upon all the demons. They then shred though the armies of darkness and return Hitler’s ghost to the underworld. Then Stalin returns himself to hell to free Emily’s soul. With the demons returned the hell portal closes and Emily can return to the mortal plane. Peace can finally return.

Well. If that isn’t the damnedest Clifford trilogy ever pitched, I don’t know what is.

It’s been a fun experiment toying with the idea of movies that might have happened in a year when hardly any of the prospective releases panned out. Hopefully we get some new real movies to have fun with in 2021. Happy holidays, readers, see you in the New Year.

Movies I Wish I Had Seen in 2020 (Part 2)

 

Movies I Wish I Had Seen in 2020 (Part 2: Alternate & Unfound Sequels) 

 

I’m back with more ideas for movies I wish I had seen in theaters in 2020! If you didn’t see part one of this fictional year of cinema, check it out, otherwise this might seem a little confusing. Either you’ll think you missed out on one of the best years of movies ever, or you’ll think I’ve lost my mind, and at least one of those isn’t true!

Let’s start off with a new sequel to the Alien franchise. No, I don’t want a continuation of the last one, Alien: Covenant, which tried to bridge the gaps between the terrifying original Alien and the divisive sci-fi adventure/thriller Prometheus. What could’ve originally been one movie was turned into an extensive, questionable, convoluted vanity project for director Ridley Scott, who is trying desperately to do two things: return to his directing roots, and explain away the origins of the creature he introduced audiences to way back in 1979. Mr. Scott needs to give it up; at this point, I don’t really care how the xenomorph came to exist. But, I still love the monster and the fictional world and the series as a whole, so what I want to see is Neil Blomkamp’s Alien 5, which is another movie that almost became a reality.

A few years back, there was all this concept art leaked and discussion about a new sequel to Aliens (that’s the second movie) from the director of District 9, and this sequel would take the same route some other major franchises have taken, such as Terminator and Halloween. It would follow an alternate timeline that ignored the morose Alien 3 and goofy Alien Resurrection, instead featuring an aged Ripley and bringing back fan-favourites Hicks and Newt, who were unceremoniously killed at the start of Alien 3. Details on the story were vague, but the concept art showed the return of the Queen, the power loader, and Ripley in some sort of biomechanical armour made of xenomorph exoskeleton. It might not have turned out that great even with its good intentions (see Terminator: Dark Fate), but at least it would’ve played to nostalgia in a more engaging way than only bringing back just the creature stuff and plot elements the way Prometheus and Covenant did. But, this concept for Blomkamp’s Alien 5 is, as far as I know, completely dead, because the studio thought it would confuse viewers and conflict with Ridley Scott’s prequel series, and now with the rights to Alien resting in the hands of Disney thanks to the 20^th Century Fox merger, it’s almost a guarantee we’ll never see it.

On the topic of alternate sequels that will never happen, there’s one I dreamed of seeing ever since I was just a little kid, and what a perfect sequel to include in my imaginary release schedule of 2020 movies. This one actually did happen…just not the way I was hoping. I always wanted to see Jurassic Park 4, and for years, it was rumored. After Jurassic Park III in 2001, I was psyched for more. Bring back Dr. Grant and Dr. Malcolm! Bring back the Spinosaurus and have it killed by an even bigger meat-eater, the Giganotosaurus! Feature my favourite dinosaur ever, the Allosaurus! Give us more dinosaurs, more destruction, a new storyline! I waited, and waited, and finally, a new Jurassic movie was announced, but it wasn’t called Jurassic Park 4, because by the time it got the green light, we were firmly in a new age of soft reboots. Straight sequels to major franchises and remakes of classics didn’t go extinct so much as they, like the Indominus Rex, became a new hybrid; essentially reintroduce audiences to something they’ll be nostalgic for by retelling the same story, but keep it in continuity with the originals instead of restarting the story. Thus, we got Jurassic World.

Look, I don’t think Jurassic World is that bad, but I also don’t consider it the true Jurassic Park 4 I always wanted. I don’t even consider it part of the Jurassic Park franchise, really, even though it’s part of the continuity. It’s a monster movie series at this point, full of action and cgi and fan service, with none of the skillful filmmaking from the original, none of the amazing practical effects, and definitely no high-quality original writing. We didn’t get any of the original characters back for the first Jurassic World, but now everyone is set to return for the upcoming Jurassic World: Dominion, so this third Jurassic World flick will be as close to a Jurassic Park 4 as I’m going to get. At this point, it feels like too little too late. My fourth Jurassic Park would have brought back the shaving cream can from the first movie, and while the DNA in that can would no longer be viable, the company that gets its hands on it is still able to recreate their own dinosaurs, and they breed them for destruction. These dinosaurs are unleashed on Isla Sorna in an attempt to exterminate the native creatures there, but as we know, life finds a way, and our heroes from the previous three movies find their way to the island once again to witness the potential end of the new age of dinosaurs. I would give it the same title many fans had speculated would be the title of a fourth film, Jurassic Park IV: Extinction.

Even a different sequel to Jurassic World than what we got would be cool to see, and I had an idea for that one, too. It would be called The Lost Park: Jurassic World 2 (as a reference to the sequel to the original Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, see what I did there? I switched it up!) and it would feature the rival company from the novels, Biosyn, creating their own island of dinosaurs, originally to compete with Jurassic World, but now they are poised to replace them as the number one place in the world to see live dinosaurs after the disaster in Jurassic World. Here’s a twist: Biosyn’s dinosaurs are more accurate in behaviour and appearance to the real-life creatures, and we get an explanation that the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park/World looked the way they did because of so much genetic tampering (there’s actually a line about that in Jurassic World). It’s revealed that Jurassic Park/World’s scientists were just creating dinosaurs that would fit the public’s perception of the extinct creatures, and this would explain why in real-life the dinos in Jurassic don’t really look the way they were supposed to. The plot would basically follow a team hired by Jurassic World executives sent to infiltrate this new park and steal info, but then things go wrong and a similar disaster to the previous one occurs. It would be exciting, different, and do what the original Jurassic tried to do: make these creatures as realistic as possible with the science available. Instead, we got Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. The less said about it the better.

I started out talking about the Alien franchise, and I’m going to wrap this up with the same franchise. It’s not really an alternate sequel so much as a sequel I was hoping for but never got. I’m minorly nostalgic for the two Alien vs. Predator films, strictly because they (mainly the first one) introduced me to both franchises, and while clearly inferior to the originals of either Alien or Predator, they still had some good ideas in there and were made by fans of both. We got AVP: Alien vs. Predator in 2004, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem in 2007, and in my alternate universe version of 2020, I got the long-awaited Aliens vs. Predator 3D! This would essentially be Aliens vs. Predator 3, but like the third Friday the 13^th, you have to include 3D as part of the 3 in the title, and yes, it will actually be shot and presented in 3D.

There are so many possibilities with this one, and I’d be tempted to go in one or two directions. Here’s my first idea. In this version of reality, the actors from the original films are totally game for appearing in this movie. So…far, far into the future, we have the last known tribe of Predators out in the depths of space, and they discover humans have brought back a creature they thought had gone extinct long ago: the dreaded xenomorphs! That’s right, this sequel goes all the way past Alien Resurrection; it’s as much an Alien 5 as it is an AVP 3. They find out the last xenomorph has arrived on earth, and earth is basically in ruins because it’s so far into the future (also that’s consistent with the ending of Alien Resurrection). The Predators arrive on earth and find the Ripley clone, played once again by Sigourney Weaver, is the only one who has survived since the ending of Resurrection. How did an Alien get to earth if they were all destroyed at the end of Resurrection? Well, one last extra egg containing a Queen facehugger was jettisoned from the ship in Resurrection that we didn’t know about and it ended up on earth, and soon the whole planet will be overrun. The Predators aren’t here to team up with Ripley, though, because they know what she is (human-alien hybrid) and want her dead, too, but Ripley has back up…enter the Predator Extermination Unit!

We get a nifty little flashback to 2018. The government is fully aware of the threat Predators are to humankind following the destruction of Gunnison, Colorado at the end of AVP: Requiem and the discoveries made in The Predator. They put together the best Special Forces team you’ve ever seen to hunt down the leader of the Predator race and kill him. Roll call! We have Dutch, played again by Arnold Schwarzenegger! Yes, he’s back! So is Danny Glover as Detective Harrigan from Predator 2! And, finally, we have Boyd Holbrook from 2018’s The Predator returning as McKenna, because we have to keep the continuity of the pre-existing Predator movies as best we can, too. One bit of continuity we’re going to alter though is getting rid of that stupid “Predator killer” suit from the ending of The Predator. We don’t need it, we have the most badass team of killers since the colonial marines in Aliens!

This team is put into hyper sleep aboard a space ship and sent out to find the Predator home world, but they are knocked off course and drift through space for as long as the hyper sleep cycle can last, which we’re going to say is a couple hundred years, so they awaken and find themselves in a far flung future, then return to earth, which is in ruins, but they eke out a living. Now the predators are back, they can finally fulfill their mission, and they have the ultimate weapon to help: the Ripley clone! So we have a badass team of humans trying to kill both the last predators and the last xenomorphs, on a post-apocalyptic earth setting, with the xenos trying to kill the humans and the predators, the predators trying to kill the humans and the xenos, and the winner will claim the title of dominant species of earth!

If you liked that story, maybe you’ll like this different version of AVP 3D, too. In this take, the original actors aren’t coming back, which would be more consistent with the majority of both series. Alien was the only one to have the same main character over four films, but now with the prequels, even that series has new protagonists with every film, and the Predator films never have the same cast. This story will take place not too long after Prometheus, with a new crew on a small exploratory spaceship bound for another planet, but they come across a Predator ship and find a way aboard. At first, the ship seems deserted, but soon, they find a xenomorph Queen has stowed away in the engine room and started a nest. Dozens of xenomorph drones patrol the hallways, and then, the ship gets more company: a pair of predators arrive to exterminate the xenos, or detonate the ship if they can’t. They didn’t expect to encounter humans, who are caught in the middle of the two warring species.

Even though this would probably be enough to constitute the film’s full runtime, we’re going to have an unexpected “fourth act” which is a trend that started with the original Alien: you think the creature is dead, the last survivor is safe, but then it turns out the danger isn’t over yet. The last human survivor will be seemingly trapped by the last surviving Predator, and in the last second, some strange being arrives. The Predator is unable to defeat it. The human will have no idea what this being is, but fans will recognize it as one of the Engineers from Prometheus! Through subtitled dialogue, the Predator and Engineer will have a conversation that will reveal the Predators and Engineers have been at war for centuries. This Engineer was a prisoner aboard the ship, and managed to escape. Predators are seen by the Engineer race as a savage, disgraceful species, and they stole the xenomorphs from them generations ago. Now, they are determined to wipe out the Predator species. The Engineer kills the Predator, and the last surviving human stows away on the Engineer ship that comes to pick up the prisoner Engineer, and the Predator ship is destroyed. The Engineer’s ship’s is a warship. The cargo hold is loaded with xenomorph eggs, and it’s bound for the Predator home world. But, this Engineer has a chestburster inside of it, and dies in the pilot’s chair, which knocks the ship off course. The ship came by remote, so there are no other Engineers aboard. The one human can’t figure out how to pilot the ship, and is captured by the xenomorph spawned from the Engineer and placed in a cocoon deep in the ship, just before the ship crash lands on a desolate planetoid: LV 426. Boom: we’ve led into the original Alien, and now we don’t need to worry about Ridley Scott’s prequels anymore.

Both of these movies could exist in continuity with both franchises, and actually, they wouldn’t contradict one another, so both could have come out in 2020. A few more notes: they will be R-rated. None of that PG-13 crap. And remember, this will be in 3D, so there are going to be chestbursters coming out of people and popping right out of the screen, predators slicing their wrist blades toward the audience, blood and slime spraying everywhere, making it feel like you’re getting splattered! It would be a prime sci-fi/horror theater-going experience.

You might have thought this was the end…but I actually have a few more ideas to share, so to avoid this one going too long, I’m just going to assemble a part 3. Stay tuned!

Movies I Wish I Had Seen in 2020 (Part 1)

 

There’s a first time for everything. For the first time since starting this blog, I will not be doing a top ten list of my favourite films of the year, for reasons that are probably obvious. But, in case you were living under a rock the past twelve months, here’s the situation: the pandemic forced theaters to close, and Hollywood pulled nearly every major movie release. Now the majority of films intended for release this year are sitting on a shelf collecting dust, and that left us cinephiles with basically nothing new to watch. Sure, there were still some new films, most of which came out on streaming services or VOD, but it was inarguably the most atypical year in the history of cinema.

Instead of a half-assed favourites of the year list (which would include Bad Boys For Life, The Invisible Man, Colour out of Space, Borat 2, and that’s pretty much it), I’m going to look over some films I wish I had seen in theaters this year. This is not going to be a wish list of all the ones that were supposed to come out in 2020, though. I’m taking a totally different approach. Even if all the movies that were supposed to have been released had come and gone, these following movies are the ones I wish I had seen regardless, but none of them are slated for release, most of them aren’t in development, and some of them will literally never see the light of day. This alternate universe of anticipated films is totally unique and made-up, so I’m sorry if I get you excited for a movie that will never happen, but at least this is a more fun, imaginative solution to not having as many new movies to talk about.    

Movies I Wish I Had Seen in 2020 (Part 1: Superheroes & Giant Monsters) 

 

Fan art for a live-action Spider-Verse (not real)

Let’s start with two of the heavy hitters, Marvel and DC. 2020 is the first year in I’m not sure how many years (perhaps a couple decades or more) that a Marvel movie was not released. Wow. I didn’t even realize for just how long we’ve been inundated with Marvel properties on the big screen. The timing was pretty good, though, with the MCU’s Infinity Saga wrapping up in 2019 with Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home, and none of the post-Infinity Saga films had been released yet before theaters started closing. I’m not interested in much of what they have lined up, with one possible exception: a live-action Into the Spider-Verse-style story, with the current Spider-Man, played by Tom Holland, meeting alternate universe versions of the web slinger, and eventually teaming up with them. We’ll have Tobey Maguire back as an older, wiser Peter Parker/Spider-Man, last seen in the 2000’s trilogy, we’ll even bring back Andrew Garfield’s Amazing Spider-Man version, and we can have other fan favourites make their live-action debuts, like Miles Morales, Spider-Man Noir, and Spider-Man 2099. Noir has to be played yet again by Nicholas Cage (he voiced the character in the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse). Throw in Tom Hardy as Venom once again too, just to spice it up even more. Now, this is all rumour at this point, but hear me out…this movie might actually happen, in some form, because the actors who previously played Spider-Man really are in talks to make appearances in the upcoming Spider-Man film set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

It’s entirely possible we see some of this come to pass, and here are a few indicators: 1) Doctor Strange has already been confirmed to have a role in the upcoming third Spider-Man. 2) Jamie Foxx has already confirmed he’ll be returning to play the villain Electro. This character was previously one of the villains in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which was the second series of Spider-Man films with Andrew Garfield, and it has been very clearly established as not being part of the known MCU storyline so far. 3) Sam Raimi is directing Doctor Strange: In the Multiverse of Madness, which is going to be the final film in Phase Four. Mr. Raimi previously directed the first three live-action Spider-Man films for Sony. It’s right there in the title. Multiverse! I hope it comes out as great as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Another Marvel film I’d like to see that isn’t really being hyped up or rumoured at the moment would be a Daredevil film with the same cast and crew from the Netflix series, only given a higher budget. The show was excellent, for the most part, but it was a shame that they pulled the plug on it so suddenly after the third season, and it didn’t feel like they got a chance to wrap it up properly. Plus, with its connections and references to the MCU, it would be neat to have Charlie Cox back as the man without fear and team him up with some of the other heroes we know are out there. He said he'd be more than game to return to the role, and I think it would be a lot better than recasting the role. I wasn’t as into the other Netflix Marvel shows, and The Defenders crossover didn’t do it for me, but Daredevil himself was beloved enough by all that he deserves to come back for at least one more story, if not a few more. I don’t really want a whole other season of the show, just one tight two-hour storyline on the big screen. The rights have gone back to Marvel, so the ball is in their court now.

What John Krasinski could look like as Mister Fantastic

One last Marvel project that I know will see the light of day one day is a reboot of the Fantastic Four, but how’s this for inspired casting? John Krasinski as Reid Richards/Mister Fantastic, Emily Blunt (Krasinski’s real-life wife) as Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman, Taryn Edgerton as Johnny Storm/Human Torch, and Bryan Cranston as Ben Grim/The Thing. Now that cast would help make it a great movie—not that the cast for the mid-2000’s Fantastic Four films was all that bad, but those films didn’t quite hit the mark in adapting Marvel’s first superhero family, and they definitely pale in comparison to the Marvel movies of the 2010’s.

Switching over to DC for a second, I was pretty excited when a Swamp Thing TV series was announced, but it got cancelled after just one season, before I even got a chance to start watching. I’ve been avoiding it because I’m afraid I’ll love it and knowing there isn’t a conclusion will only hurt more, but you know what would be great? If they did a Swamp Thing movie with the same cast and crew, a higher budget, and do it as a sequel to the series but also make it stand alone so viewers don’t have to have seen the show to get it. The first season presumably covers his origin story, so just forge ahead with another storyline, and there are plenty of great ones to pick from. I love the comics, and wish there was more Swamp Thing out there. Another DC property I’d love to see instead of the upcoming Zack Snyder’s Justice League is an animated film adaptation of the Super Friends cartoon series (link to my review of the show: http://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2017/11/justice-league-review-or-is-it.html) It would be in total contrast to DC’s current theatrical endeavors being strictly live-action, gritty, and edgy, but it would be awesome to see the old cheesy heroics brought back.

A genre of films I love even more than superhero movies is giant monster movies, and 2020 dealt me a bitter blow: my most-anticipated film of the year (and of many, many years) Godzilla vs. Kong, was delayed until 2021. Recently, there was discussion it might go straight to streaming, which on the one hand would mean I get to see it sooner, but on the other hand, I feel like I’d be missing out on seeing it in a theater on the big screen with a crowd opening night. Watching it at home for the first time just wouldn’t be the same. As cool as it will be to see Godzilla and Kong battling each other for only the second time in cinematic history (the last match was fifty years ago), I have some other ideas for giant monster movies I’d like to see even more. One of them is Godzilla 1994, which I learned about only recently, and it almost happened for real, too.

Stan Winston's unused Godzilla design

Also known as Godzilla vs. The Gryphon, this unmade ’94 Godzilla film was supposed to be the first American adaptation, directed by Jan de Bont with a script by future Pirates of the Caribbean scribes Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot (the script is available online in full). In this story, Godzilla is an artificially-created species, which is one of the only aspects that I don’t care for, but other than that, it tells a suspenseful and exciting tale of Big G awakening and wreaking havoc on humanity before taking on the Gryphon, a worthy foe that was original to this story. The creative team made it to the pre-production stage, and even legendary creature effects creator Stan Winston got a chance to redesign Godzilla, but sadly, the studio got cold feet when the budget went too high, and Godzilla 1994 languished in development hell. Eventually, it got rewritten completely when director Roland Emmerich came aboard, and we all know how that went…Tristar’s 1998 Godzilla, ironically, ended up with a budget bigger than what was originally needed for Godzilla 1994, the redesign of Godzilla was rejected by fans (Patrick Tatopoulos created a more dinosaur-like creature, Stan Winston’s concepts were never used), and the reviews were poor. I’d love to pop over to an alternate universe where Godzilla 1994 is the first American Godzilla movie that was ever made, just to see how it would have turned out. I bet it would’ve been significantly better than what we got in this universe, but then again, we may never have had the current MonsterVerse from Legendary if not for Tristar’s abomination.  

The 2014 American reboot of Godzilla even borrowed a number of elements from the ’94 script, and it ended up being a lot better than the Tristar attempt. Godzilla (2014) also helped reboot the series in Japan as well, and we got Shin Godzilla a couple years later, but we also almost got a Gamera reboot around that time, too. There was a 2015 fan film released online, which sort of functioned as an extended trailer for a potential modernization of the giant atomic mutant turtle, and I would have loved to see a full movie version of that trailer. The villain Gyaos was made scarier than he had ever been in the past, and Gamera’s massive size and power would have been mind-blowing on the big screen. I was hoping Shin Godzilla would have led to a resurgence in Japanese Godzilla films, but I’m still waiting for the next one from Toho. Gamera may have had a chance at a resurgence, too, had the 2015 fan film led to an actual reboot. The only thing that would’ve been even more epic? If it was tied in to the current MonsterVerse.

But what would make me happier than any other giant monster film would be what I’m going to call The Daikaiju Royal Rumble. This throw down would be in the style of Destroy All Monsters or Godzilla Final Wars, pulling together all the greatest monsters from many different films and pitting them all against one another in one epic movie. What would be special about this one though is it would put together every major daikaiju from all the big franchises. We’re talking monsters that have never been in movies together ever before. Godzilla, Ghidorah, Mothra, Rodan, and King Kong. And we’ll have Gamera, who has never shared the screen with Godzilla before, but fans have always wanted to see the two monsters battle. We’ll even include Korea’s giant monster Yongary, and the Danish reptilian monster Reptilicus! There’ll be cameos from lesser known monsters, too, like Q: The Winged Serpent, and classic behemoths we haven’t seen in decades like The Rhedosaurus from Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, and speaking of behemoths, throw in the monster from The Giant Behemoth! Then in the middle of the climactic final battle between all of these monsters, a portal opens, and guess what comes through it? That’s right, the entire kaiju army from Pacific Rim! This movie would literally melt my brain from sheer awesomeness.

That’s all for today, but I have plenty more ideas for movies I wish I had seen in 2020, so tune in again soon for part two, where I’ll be covering unfounded sequels and some original ideas!