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Circulating Photos Claim to Show Anno, Higuchi's New Godzilla

Three private photos allegedly taken at TOHO Studios claim to show the titular monster of Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi's Godzilla Resurgence (Shin Godzilla) film. The pictures, if legitimate, show a monster covered in reddish scarring, rows upon rows of teeth, and a concave chest.

Mahiro Maeda (Mad Max: Fury Road) and Takayuki Takeya (live-action Attack on Titan) are reimagining the iconic monster for the new film. The version showed in the photos do bear a stylistic resemblance to the horrifying Titans in Higuchi's films.

Anno described the designs as ones "only the Japanese could make." Maeda thinks the designs returned to the franchise's reality-grounded roots, embodying the Japanese experience of the March 11 disaster (compared to the reality of the first Godzilla films made in post-war Japan).

Higuchi promised that this will be the scariest Godzilla yet, quoting the horrors of the real world, like 9/11, the March 11 tsunami, and subsequent Fukushima nuclear crisis having stripped the the world of its innocence. The film will use a hybrid of actors moving through miniatures (a staple of the early Godzilla films), computer graphics, and special effects. Godzilla Resurgence (Shin Godzilla) is the first new Japanese Godzilla film in 12 years. The film will open on July 29.

[Via The Good, The Bad, and Godzilla]