There have been a slew of news reports lately that Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros., the combo responsible for the current remake of Clash Of The Titans, will be producing a new Godzilla movie for release in 2012.It's kind of funny to see this. It's part of a story I've been following for the past few years. A guy named Yoshimitsu Banno -- named in the story linked above as one of the film's producers -- has been making the rounds in the US entertainment industry trying to get a new Godzilla project off the ground since at least the late 90s. Banno is an intriguing character. He is the only person to have directed just one Godzilla movie (not including the last US-made catastrophe in 1998). Most Godzilla movie directors get asked back after they do one movie. Banno apparently made the execs at Toho so mad they never asked him back.
Banno's Godzilla movie was 1971's Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster, one of my personal all-time favorites of the series. It turns out that Banno didn't just pick a pollution-based monster as Godzilla's enemy because it was a trendy topic at the time. He was and is a big environmentalist. It has long been his dream to remake Godzilla vs The Smog Monster with a big budget as a way of calling attention to the serious environmental issues facing humanity today.
Apparently, Banno managed to purchase the rights to remake Smog Monster from Toho. But his efforts to get it going haven't been all that successful until now. Last I'd heard before this news came about was that he was trying to get a 15 minute Imax version made somewhere in South America. Or something like that...
ANYWAY, this all got me thinking that one of the FAQ's I get fairly often when I'm on tour from people who've read Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate is, "What the heck ever happened with your job at the Godzilla company?" (which was not the company that made Godzilla, but was a company founded by the guy who invented Godzilla)
I left that unresolved at the end of the book because at the time I finished writing the book it was unresolved. What ended up happening is that I got fired. That's in the book, I think.
But then in September of 2008 I went to Japan to lead the annual Dogen Sangha retreat and scheduled a meeting with the company while I was there. It was at this meeting that they proposed for me to come back to Japan and work for them again at the Tokyo office.
I really hemmed and hawed on this one. I desperately wanted to return to Japan. I feel more at home there than I do anywhere else. And yet returning to my old job sounded unappealing. Besides that, Zen Wrapped in Karma was set to be released in the Spring of the following year and I wouldn't be in America to promote it if I took the job in Japan.
At the end of 2008 I had to make my official decision. So I moved in to the San Francisco Zen Center for three weeks, finished off the book, then called up Tokyo and told them I was staying in America. I officially quit.
And that's the story!
Remember that this weekend I'll be in Brooklyn at the Zen Center there running a retreat. There's still space available. All info is on this link here.
Then it's on to Baltimore and following that, Richmond, Virginia. All info is on the link referenced above.
