There's A John Carpenter Godzilla Fan Film The World Will Never See
In 2022, director John Carpenter curated a special four-film marathon for Shout! Factory TV, one of the best streaming services out there. As recorded by Den of Geek, the lineup included Carpenter's four favorite films in the Godzilla mythos: "Gojira" (1954), "Rodan" (1956), "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster" (1964), and, naturally, "War of the Gargantuas" (1966). One should be warned, however, that watching all four of those films in a row will instigate severe brain growth and usher in a phase of enlightenment previously unexperienced by most mortals.
Carpenter has long been a fan of Godzilla movies, having grown up in the 1950s when many of Toho's celebrated kaiju movies were opening in the United States. Carpenter's exposure to Godzilla at an early age not only contributed to his love of cinema but encouraged him to make movies of his own. As Carpenter's own fans might know, he got his start in filmmaking as a kid, shooting films on an 8mm camera in his backyard. He even experimented with stop-motion animation and other homemade special effects. In John Kenneth Muir's book "The Films of John Carpenter," some of Carpenter's early backyard films are even listed by name: "Revenge Of The Colossal Beasts," (clearly inspired by Bert I. Gordon's "War of the Colossal Beast"), "Terror From Space," "Gorgon the Space Monster," and, without bothering with licensing, "Gorgo Versus Godzilla."
While Carpenter's fans would likely have a wonderful time watching these films, Carpenter has assured anyone who will listen that those films are never going to see the light of day. They are, he says, too awful for human consumption. In the interview, Carpenter talked briefly about "Gorgo vs. Godzilla," and how terrible it is.
Gorgo Versus Godzilla
Although not as celebrated as "Gojira," Eugène Lourié's "Gorgo" was a British kaiju film released in 1961, a film clearly made to cash in on the popularity of Japanese monster movies that were proliferating the international film market. It's likely that both "Gorgo" and various "Godzilla" sequels were making the rounds through American grindhouses when Carpenter was a boy, and he likely saw two monster films back-to-back as part of a glorious double feature.
When Den of Geek asked Carpenter if his fans would ever see "Gorgo Versus Godzilla," Carpenter replied with a curt "Oh, please, let's not talk about this, I was so young." The interviewer, Tony Sokol, merely wanted one thing clarified: who won in the end. Surely it was Godzilla? Did he trash Gorgo's ass? Because Gorgo was clearly a Godzilla knockoff? "Yes. Yes, he did. He just trashed it. What a question." He continued to say that liking Godzilla was once considered an outsider's interest for weirdos, and now it's considered a lot cooler. The director said:
"I just wanted to share my love of Godzilla movies with others. I grew up on them, I raised my son on them. Godzilla is the longest-running franchise of any movie in the world. He is the king. I wanted to do it as an act of love. These movies have been appreciated in silence for years. It wasn't cool to be a fan of Godzilla. It just wasn't. It was just a shameful thing. I'm not ashamed."
I can understand why Carpenter doesn't want anyone to see his Godzilla movie. Do you want the world to see the art you made — the fanfic, the superhero drawings, the unicorn watercolors — at age 14?
Leave Carpenter's fanfic be
And no, before the more enterprising internet sleuths begin their investigation, hoping to find a bootleg copy of "Gorgo Versus Godzilla" online somewhere, I can assure you that Carpenter's teen films are really, for sure, 100% not available. This is especially frustrating to idly-surfing cineastes who have stumbled upon Carpenter's early films on his IMDb profile. The film also has eight user reviews, but looking through those reviews reveals little more than a 25-year-old debate as to the existence of the movie.
One user claimed that sketches from "Gorgo Versus Godzilla" were printed in the 1969 book "Young Filmmakers" by Rodger Larson and Ellen Meade, but this is patently untrue. John Carpenter was only just entering USC in 1969, and had only made one short called "Captain Voyeur." That film, however, was archived for many years and wasn't uncovered until 2011. There would be no reason for authors in 1969 to do a profile on a future filmmaker who was still learning his craft. Carpenter's first feature, "Dark Star" wouldn't hit theaters until 1974.
It's also unlikely that Carpenter would return to directing to make a new Godzilla film of his own. For one, the American Godzilla movies are already part of a massive franchise and it's unlikely a studio would hire an auteur like Carpenter to join the party midstream (not to mix metaphors). Carpenter has also said that he's more or less done with directing, preferring to make music and play video games.
Carpenter, however, picked up the camera again for an episode of the anthology TV series "Suburban Screams," so he's not quite finished.