That's just a few days short of sixteen years after Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin's much-hyped 1998 Godzilla movie from Sony Pictures.  That film has spent fourteen years now being rightly mocked and dismissed for pretty completely misunderstanding the appeal of Japan's foremost movie monster.  Today's press release implicitly acknowledges that film's abject failure, saying that the new Godzilla "will return the character to its epic roots with a gritty, realistic actioner." 

Those roots are very much based in the atomic horrors experienced by Japan at the close of WWII.  The first Godzilla movie, released less than a decade after the American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was an obvious response to the nation's unique experience in the nuclear age, as mutant monster created by nuclear testing went on an unstoppable rampage through Tokyo.

This new version is directed by Gareth Edwards, the writer-director behind 2010's mico-budget thriller Monsters, which itself featured a pretty blunt allegorical element.  So hopefully this "gritty, realistic" take on a giant lizard breaking stuff won't be simply spectacle.  Edwards is working from a screenplay by David Callaham, David S. Goyer, and Max Borenstein.

Here's the press release:

Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures have slated their take on the classic Godzilla franchise to kick off the Summer moviegoing season on May 16, 2014.  The joint announcement was made today by Dan Fellman, President of Domestic Distribution, and Veronika Kwan Vandenberg, President of International Distribution, Warner Bros. Pictures, and by Legendary Pictures.

Toho Co., Ltd.’s Godzilla franchise contains one of the most widely recognized movie monsters worldwide, including more than 25 films, multiple television programs, video games and book series.  Legendary, which has been developing the project, and its partner Warner Bros. will return the character to its epic roots with a gritty, realistic actioner.  The project will fall under Legendary’s overall agreement with Warner Bros.

The film is directed by Gareth Edwards, who earned worldwide acclaim for his feature directorial debut, “Monsters.”  Edwards directs from a screenplay by David Callaham (“The Expendables” films), David S. Goyer (the “Dark Knight” trilogy) and Max Borenstein (upcoming “The Seventh Son”).  Legendary’s Thomas Tull and Jon Jashni will produce, along with Roy Lee, Dan Lin and Brian Rogers.  Alex Garcia and Patricia Whitcher will serve as executive producers alongside Doug Davison, Yoshimitsu Banno and Kenji Okuhira.

A presentation of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures, the film will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, except in Japan, where it will be distributed by Toho Co., Ltd.  The tent pole film is expected to be presented in 3D.

That May 16, 2012 release date is also unofficially occupied by Paramount's Ninja Turtles reboot, but we haven't heard much from that film since pre-production was unceremoniously halted.  So we're not even sure if Ninja Turtles will happen at all, let alone in May of that summer.  Turtles aside, Godzilla will be nestled between the sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man on May 2 and prequel-sequel Dawn of the Planet of the Apes on May 23.