Although there has been no official announcement, there is no doubt that the King of the Monsters, Godzilla, is coming to the Criterion Collection.
On Monday, Criterion posted to their Facebook page a picture of a film canister, with “Dupe Posi(tive): GODZILLA. Reel 2 of 10 Reels. Toho Company, Ltd.” written in Japanese. (Thanks to The Good, The Bad And Godzilla for the translation.)
The post pretty much confirmed rumors that Criterion was planning a release of the classic daikaiju egu film that had been swirling since earlier this summer when the original Gojira and its American re-edit Godzilla: King Of The Monsters briefly appeared on Criterion’s Hulu page for a brief time. The photo also hints that Criterion will be probably be doing on a restoration of the film, working from interpositive elements supplied by Toho. Of course, all this should be treated as speculation until confirmed by Criterion.
If a restoration is in the works for Gorjira, that is certainly exciting and welcome news. While Classic Media’s release of the film and a handful of subsequent entries from Toho’s giant monster films contained a plethora of extras, the picture itself was in need of some serious attention.
Now as I’ve said just a few paragraphs ago, this is all pretty much speculation. But I definitely feel we’re on solid ground here. Given Criterion’s track record, it’ll be interesting to see what they come up with for this release.
