Picture Worth A 1000 Words: Could Pacific Rim and Godzilla Crossover?
Michael K. Matsumoto really got my head spinning with this artwork. Besides the fact that this is a fantastic piece, I realized that it would be entirely possible for Pacific Rim and Godzilla to have a crossover film! With Warner Bros. and Legendary co-financing and producing Pacific Rim, and with Legendary helming Godzilla this could happen. A major wrench in this chain would be the fact that starting in 2014 WB and Legendary are ending their contract and Universal will now partner with Legendary. Depending on how licensing works, I would imagine this would mean Godzilla would fall under the ownership of Universal Films at the time of its release. If, however, Legendary did somehow retain some rights to ownership of the character, the earliest we could see a crossover would be five years from now when Warner could renew their contract.
Guillermo del Toro said in an interview with Collider that he would love to see a crossover between the two franchises, but has no idea if merging the current adaptation with his series would even work.
“So far with the sequel, what we’re writing, what we’re creating, is very different, so there are no plans. Hypothetically, I would love the **** out of it. I would love to see a Jaeger and Godzilla duke it out. That would be too much for the human brain. But I don’t think there are plans on that. I don’t even know what direction they’re taking Godzilla in. I know somewhat that it’s grounded differently.
“[In] Pacific Rim … the color, the saturation of color, was almost an acid-drip version of the Heavy Metal coloring that I loved when Richard Corben was working there, when [Jean-Claude] Forest was working there. Super bright, super saturated, the crazy color and aesthetic. And Godzilla is more realistic, somewhat. That’s my thinking. That’s what I’ve heard. I don’t even know which way they’re going.”
Another challenge would be taking Godzilla and separating it from the rest of the Kaiju somehow. You don't necessarily want to make Godzilla the bad guy, and as big as the character is, you can't have a Jaeger completely annihilate him on screen. You really can't have Godzilla win either. So it's lose-lose unless somehow they communicate and join forces. The camp of the team up would be absolutely fine in Pacific Rim. But as Del Toro said, depending on the seriousness of Godzilla, it might not work between the two franchises.
Maybe the good doctors Newton and Gottlieb could use a Kaiju brain to somehow communicate or jump into Godzilla's brain and control him to make it a bit more of a forced team up. There is also the origin of Godzilla being grounded on Earth as opposed to the dimensional warp for the other Kaiju. Perhaps he could become a defender to protect his turf. A third option I just thought of; write it similar to Godzilla vs King Ghidorah and have the dimensional warp actually opened by Futurians wishing to destroy the economy of the world, as opposed to just Japan.
Those are all a stretch, I know. But I really think this could be an excellent crossover rivaling even Batman vs Superman! Del Toro, hit me up if you need a screenwriter. I think I'm onto something here.