Ken Watanabe Joins Godzilla As Production Begins

After years of being stuck in development hell the Godzilla reboot is finally starting production. In the most recent incarnation of the giant Japanese monster first got back on its legs back in January of 2011 when Monsters director Gareth Edwards came on-board to helm, and has been slowly building ever since. The last few weeks have been filled with various casting announcements, but with cameras now rolling they have added one more name to the roster.

Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures have confirmed in a press release that Inception star Ken Watanabe has joined the impressive cast of the new Godzilla movie. The Japanese Oscar nominee is the latest actor to sign on for the monster flick, which previously announced that Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliette Binoche, David Strathairn and Bryan Cranston are also starring. There is currently no information available about the character that Watanabe will play, and we've yet to see an official plot synopsis. The studios first revealed a teaser trailer for the movie at San Diego Comic Con last year, along with an official poster.

Godzilla Poster

Filming is now underway in Vancouver, using a script written in part by Max Borenstein, Frank Darabont and Dave Callaham. The film is aiming for a May 16, 2014 release date, opening the week before Matt Reeves' Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and just two weeks after Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Interestingly, the press release about Godzilla says, "the film is expected to be presented in 3D," which would seem to imply that the movie isn't being filmed in 3D and could undergo a conversion during post-production.

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