The yokels at Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures who announced a plan last March to make a new Godzilla film have found a director — Gareth Edwards, the young British guy who wrote and directed Monsters. A hip flavor-of-the-month guy…naturally.

WB production chief Jeff Robinov strides into a conference room and announces to a large gathering of creatives, “We’re revitalizing ourselves with another fucking Godzilla. Done to death, I know, but not like this. We strip it down. Make it visceral and real.

“But a new Godzilla needs a new Godzilla director. A fresh face to present to the world. But which director can bring to life both Godzillas? The legendary Tojo version that became a horror-film legend in the mid ’50s and the Warner Bros. corporate bullshit ComicCon CGI version that all the T-shirted, sandal-wearing fan boys want to see?”

Edwards will give it hell, I’m sure. But the low-budget instincts and hip-pocket mentality that made Monsters half-succeed (it’s a decent film) will be totally suffocated by the big-budget, big-combine machine mentality that makes all Warner Bros. movies look and sound more or less the same.

In the wake of the initial Godzilla announcement last March I wrote that WB and Legendary basically declared an intention “to remake a 12 year-old deeply loathed Roland Emmerich film.” An HE reader named Colin wrote that “they’re not remaking Emmerich’s version…they’re going back to the roots.” And I said, “‘Going back to the roots’…really? They’re making a period film set in the ’50s, you mean? And they’re setting it Tokyo? And they’re going to allude to nuclear bombs as the reason for Godzilla being awakened? I’ll tell you something — I don’t think so!”

“I’d approve [this film] on one condition,” I wrote. “If Legendary commits to shooting it in black-and-white…okay, in color but with a guy splashing around inside a Godzilla suit, like the 1954 filmmakers did. Shoot the damn thing on sound stages with stupid-looking miniature buildings and fighter jets on wires and toy ships in the harbor. That I would honestly pay to see. Especially if the Godzilla suit has eyes with white pupils that roll around when the monster gets especially angry. And if they use that old Godzilla roar.”