View box office forecast and results and data from online trends
Godzilla(2014)
Warner Bros. May 16, 2014 | Wide
The world is beset by the appearance of monstrous creatures, but one of them may be the only one who can save humanity.
Releases
Original Release | May 16, 2014
Box Office
Results
$93,188,384
$200,676,069
$324,300,000
$524,978,362
Director & Top Cast
Technical Specifications
Sound Mix: Dolby Atmos,SDDS,Datasat,Dolby Digital,Dolby Surround 7.1
Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1
Other Details
Country of Origin: United States,Japan
Language: English,Japanese
Showtimes
Your Location or
(U.S. Only)
Summaries
Plot Summary
- In 1954, the United States military witnesses a nuclear test. A hydrogen bomb is detonated at the moment a giant creature emerges from the ocean. In 1999, Project Monarch scientists Ishiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) and Vivienne Graham (Sally Hawkins) investigate a colossal skeleton unearthed in a collapsed mine in the Philippines. They find two chrysalises; one dormant, one broken open and a recently made trail to the sea (This trail triggers an earthquake which is followed all the way to Japan). In Japan, the Janjira Nuclear Power Plant experiences unusual seismic activity. Supervisor Joe Brody sends (Bryan Cranston) his wife Sandra and a team of technicians into the reactor. While the team is inside, the reactor is breached, releasing radioactive steam. Sandra and her team are unable to escape and the plant collapses into ruin.Fifteen years later, Joe's son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a US Navy explosive ordnance disposal officer (including nuclear bombs), returns from a tour of duty to his family in San Francisco but has to immediately depart for Japan after Joe is detained for trespassing in the Janjira quarantine zone. Joe, determined to reveal the disaster's true cause (he believes that the new seismic readings being measured in Janjira are very similar to the ones measured on the day of the nuclear disaster 15 years ago), persuades Ford to accompany him to their old home within the zone to retrieve vital data. They successfully retrieve the data but are captured and taken to a secret facility within the plant's ruins. Here Serizawa & Graham meet Jeo as Jeo used to manage the plant, the day it was ruined & also because he does not believe that it was a natural disaster.Inside, a giant winged creature emerges from containment and escapes, destroying the facility. The creature was under a massive concrete containment structure but was generating increasing electromagnetic pulses at subsequently shorter intervals, pulsing towards a giant EMP outburst. The creature is known to feed on nuclear material (hence the attack on Janjira 15 years ago, to find an energy source to sustain itself till it grew stringer. Serizawa decides to kill the creature by electrifying it, but that does not work & the creature escapes. Joe is severely wounded and later dies. The incident is reported as an earthquake.Serizawa, Graham and Ford join a US Navy task force led by Admiral William Stenz on the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga to search for the creature, dubbed "Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism," ("MUTO"). To Ford, the scientists reveal how a 1954 US Submarine based deep sea expedition triggered the awakening & appearance of Godzilla, a prehistoric alpha predator, predating mankind by millions of years when radiation levels on our planet's surface were much higher. The Godzilla & others like him, use radiation as a food source & as the surface levels decreased, they retreated closer to the planet's core to get their radiation. Early nuclear tests were really attempts to kill it; that Project Monarch was formed secretly to study Godzilla; and that the MUTO (which hatched 15 years ago in the collapsed mine in the Philippines & headed straight for the nearest source of radiation, the Janjira nuclear plant & cocooned itself for 15 yrs until it emerged like a butterfly) caused the Janjira destruction. Ford reveals that Joe had monitored echolocation signals that indicated the MUTO was communicating with something.Post this Ford is deposited in Honolulu to catch a commercial flight to SFO. The MUTO is found feeding off the wreckage of a Russian nuclear submarine (as any nuclear source is food for NUTO) it deposited in a forest in Hawaii. The military attacks and the battle shifts to Honolulu International Airport where Ford is waiting for a flight home. The MUTO keeps generating EMPs to deactivate all weapons unleashed against him.Godzilla arrives (Serizawa had predicted that Godzilla would battle MUTO as it is an Alpha predator & will not accept any challenge to his authority. Godzilla figured MUTO's location by the Echolocation pulses that the MUTO had be generating to communicate with something else), causing a tsunami that devastates Waikiki. After briefly fighting Godzilla, the MUTO flies away, and Honolulu is left in ruin. Stenz's carrier battle group follows the Godzilla as it approaches the US Pacific coast. Serizawa reckons that Godzilla is hunting & will be following MUTO.Meanwhile, at a Nevada nuclear waste facility, a second, larger and wingless MUTO, emerges and devastates Las Vegas. The scientists deduce that the second MUTO is female, the two were communicating and will meet to breed. Serizawa also concludes that the 2nd MUTO came from the dormant spore found in the Philippine mine & was trashed in Nevada where US disposes all its nuclear waste.The task force follows Godzilla, projecting that the monsters will meet near San Francisco. Over the scientists' objections, Stenz approves a plan to use nuclear warheads to lure the monsters to a safe distance from the city and then detonated to destroy the monsters. Ford returns with the military to California and joins a team delivering the warheads by train to Stenz's team waiting in SFO (He persuades the team lead to let him join as he has activated & deactivated nuclear arsenal in real combat situations). All digital stuff on the warheads is replaced with analog stuff, including the remote detonators as MUTO's can mess with them with their EMPs. The female MUTO destroys the train and devours one of the warheads. The remaining warhead is airlifted to the city and is activated, but the MUTOs capture it and take it to a nest in the downtown area, where the female deposits her eggs.After the military fails to stop Godzilla when it arrives at the Golden Gate Bridge, Stenz accepts Serizawa's advice and orders the military to withdraw to allow the three monsters to fight. While they battle, soldiers, including Ford, enter the city by HALO jump to find and disarm the warhead. Unable to disarm the warhead at the nest, they put it on a boat for disposal at sea. Ford destroys the nest, causing the female to leave the battle. Godzilla then kills the male, using its tail to crush the MUTO against a building. The female finds and kills the team on the boat, but Ford is saved when Godzilla kills the female by firing atomic breath down her throat and decapitating her. Godzilla then collapses from injury and exhaustion. Ford pilots the boat out to sea and is rescued before the warhead detonates.The next day, Ford finds his family at an emergency shelter. In the city ruins, Godzilla, thought to be dead, suddenly awakens and returns to the ocean after a final roar.
Storyline
- In 1999, the Janjira nuclear plant was mysteriously destroyed with most hands lost including supervisor Joe Brody's colleague and wife, Sandra. Years later, Joe's son, Ford, a US Navy ordnance disposal officer, must go to Japan to help his estranged father who obsessively searches for the truth of the incident. In doing so, father and son discover the disaster's secret cause on the wreck's very grounds. This enables them to witness the reawakening of a terrible threat to all of Humanity, which is made all the worse with a second secret revival elsewhere. Against this cataclysm, the only hope for the world may be Godzilla, but the challenge for the King of the Monsters will be great even as Humanity struggles to understand the destructive ally they have. — Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com) In 1999, in Japan, there is a mysterious accident with the reactors of the Janjira nuclear power plant and the engineer Joe Brody loses his wife Sandra Brody and her team that were inspecting the reactor. Joe never accepts the official explanation for the accident. Fifteen years later, his son, the US Navy Officer Ford Brody, learns that Joe has trespassed in Janjira quarantine area and is arrested in Japan. He travels to Japan to release his father and they go to the Janjira facility area to retrieve Joe's data and pictures. Soon they discover the truth about the accident, caused by a "Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism" ("MUTO") that eats radiation trapped underground. The MUTO escapes from the secret facility to Honolulu killing Joe. Godzilla is also awakened, causes a tsunami in Hawaii and fights against the MUTO destroying Honolulu. Meanwhile a female MUTO escapes from the Nevada nuclear waste facility and destroys Las Vegas, heading to breed with the first MUTO in San Francisco. Now the last hope on Earth is Godzilla fighting and destroying the MUTO's. — Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil When mankind found an ancient spore, they began to preserved until nearly 15 years, it hatches. Now with maloevent terrestrial organisms threatening the existence of man kind, an ancient creature from the depts of the ocean, will rise again to fulfill natures order to restore its balance, while also making sure mankind never makes the same mistakes again. As the story opens in Japan, we find dedicated nuclear power-plant manager Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) so caught up in his work that he forgets it's his birthday. Sending his young son Ford off to school before reporting to the plant with his wife Sandra (Juliette Binoche), who works in the reactor, Joe begins to suspect that some suspiciously patterned seismic activity may be something more sinister than shifting tectonic plates He's right, too, because when the plant goes into meltdown mode and Sandra gets caught on the wrong side of the containment door, a massive cover-up ensues. Fifteen years later, Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) has become a bomb-disposal expert in the U.S. military. He's just returned home to his wife Elle (Elizabeth Olsen) and their son Sam (Carson Bolde) when he gets word that Joe been arrested in Japan. Long estranged from his father, who was written off as a conspiracy theorist for his failed efforts to prove the Japanese government was attempting to hide something about the earlier disaster, Ford nevertheless ventures to Japan to get him out of jail, and reluctantly agrees to join him in traveling to their old home in the quarantined zone. Subsequently taken into custody, the pair end up in the very plant where Joe used to work, and where scientists Dr. Ichiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) and Vivienne Graham (Sally Hawkins) are studying a massive cocoon-like structure that appears to feed on radiation. The situation turns critical when the events of the present begin to mirror those of the past, and a terrifying winged-creature dubbed a "MUTO" is unleashed. Meanwhile, as the military attempts to devise a plan to destroy the beast, signals indicate that it had been calling out to something before it broke free, and the scientists learn that it has awoken a towering, godlike leviathan that has lied dormant for centuries, and may be mankind's only hope for restoring the balance of nature.. 1 more All