Sony Hopes for Monster Hit at Stores

As the monster besieges New York City in “Godzilla,” a television anchor gives a play-by-play of the destruction. He reports that looters have created bedlam on “pricey Fifth Avenue,” pillaging the Disney and Warner Bros. stores.

It’s one of the more subtle inside jokes of this outsized movie, if one knows that “Godzilla’s” studio, Sony, failed at the studio store game (it shuttered its Sony retail store in New York a couple of years ago). Now, the studio hopes “Godzilla” will become the kind of blockbuster franchise that allows it to rake in money for merchandise as well as at the box office. More than 200 licensees, making 3,000 different products from toys to T-shirts, are on board with the film.

There’s one catch: At the insistence of filmmakers Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, Sony asked retailers to sign an agreement that they wouldn’t put the merchandise on shelves until the movie opens today. Critics and licensing executives say that move--combined with the changed look of Godzilla himself--will likely hurt product sales. Indeed, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times last year, Sony consumer products head Peter Dang said 40% of movie-related merchandise is typically sold before the film even comes out.

“Having product in stores two to four weeks in advance of the movie is standard,” said a rival studio’s licensing executive, who asked to remain anonymous. Continued the executive, “Otherwise, retailers can get very scared by a lack of awareness and hype. Once it’s out of the box, forget it; they’ve lost the benefit of all that opening-weekend hype.”

In fact, several retailers, including branches of Toys “R” Us and Target, are known to have put out merchandise early. Sony complained, and got a few of them to put the stuff back in the storeroom until today.

Another potential problem: Although the movie’s effects are impressive, many are underwhelmed by the leaner, meaner look of the new Godzilla. Shrouded for months in Kremlin-like secrecy, Godzilla is now out of the bag and being widely compared to a cross between “the mother beast in ‘Alien’ and a T-Rex from ‘Jurassic Park,’ ” as Daily Variety put it.

On the other hand, he’s no longer the lumbering, almost humanoid beast of the early “Godzilla” movies. Granted, no one wants to see a computer-generated Barney. But did they have to take away the anthropomorphic quality that made Godzilla a sympathetic monster?

“The head’s too cumbersome; the eyes are expressive, but they’re too small, which reduces the emotional value of the creature,” said Bill Warren, a writer for fanzines Starlog and Fangoria who saw an early screening of the film. Warren also complained that not getting an early, full-on look at the monster was a drawback. “In ‘King Kong,’ you don’t see him for quite a while, but then, boom! you get a full shot of him. That’s powerful,” Warren said.

Perhaps the real reason Emmerich and Devlin have been so secretive--driving Sony executives, retailers and licensees (not to mention fans) a little crazy--is they knew they’d get flak for whatever the monster’s new look was.