ROYAL RUMBAL
King Of The Monsters is not Michael Dougherty’s first Godzilla movie. In fact, the rampaging, reptilian colossus starred in the 44-year-old writer-director’s first ever film. In a sense.
Thirty-five years ago, when living in Columbus, Ohio, Dougherty was allowed to try out his parents’ new Betamax camcorder. He didn’t have to think long about what he’d do with it. “My first instinct,” he tells Empire, “was to make a Godzilla film.” So he grabbed his Star Wars action-figure play sets and Hot Wheels cars, cued up some suitably “scary, dramatic music”, and started rolling as the star of his home-made show — namely Tony the tortoise, his pet box turtle — rampaged through toy town.
Godzilla (the real one, not Tony) has always been part of Dougherty’s life; at least since he was old enough to walk. Every Saturday, his local TV station would play a triple bill of the Hanna-Barbera animated series, a Toho Studios Godzilla feature and a classic Universal monster movie. Every Saturday, little Michael would eagerly watch all three, consuming what he calls “a concentrated dose of amazing stories and monsters” that ultimately inspired him to become an animator, then a filmmaker.
Like any child, he’d grown up being fascinated by dinosaurs and had never quite recovered from the realisation that the Ray Harryhausen films had lied to him. Homo sapiens
