Godzilla Director Gareth Edwards Talks Godzooky

By now, it’s no secret that Legendary Pictures’s reimagining of the Godzilla mythology will feature more than just the titular monster.We’ve seen in trailers and featurettes that there will be a number of kaiju in the film, including at least one that we’ve seen in mid-flight in the “let them fight” scene released over the weekend, ready to square off against Godzilla himself.So…what about Godzooky?For those unfamiliar, Godzooky is the nephew of Godzilla, who appeared in an animated series in the ’70s. Loosely based on Minilla (the son of Godzilla from the live-action films), Godzooky was the “special kids’ character” introduced for the cartoons.”My very first experience with Godzilla is embarrassing,” Edwards admitted during an interview on the film’s junket. “In the U.K., when we were kids growing up, we had the Hanna-Barbera cartoon. Not too many people know it in America — I thought it was this worldwide thing, but it was basically Godzilla and I guess his son called Godzookie. And it was all very cute when you’re a kid and it was great. And all this started happening and I got offered this amazing opportunity. People in the UK, they like to take the piss out of their friends, and so just to mock me, they would always refer to it as ‘Godzooky.’ So, “How’s Godzooky doing? Have you been to any Godzooky meetings?” And I used to play along with it until the point where my phone learned Godzooky’s spelling more than it learned Godzilla. And so when we used to have regular e-mails about the film, I’d type in ‘Godzilla’ and it would automatically change it to ‘Godzooky’ and so for a while I thought I might get fired because you’ve obviously got the wrong guy — he doesn’t even know the name of the main character!”