Colossal (film)

Gloria is an unemployed writer struggling with alcoholism. Her boyfriend Tim, frustrated with her behavior, breaks up with her and kicks her out of their New York City apartment. Moving back to her family home in Mainhead, New Hampshire, Gloria reunites with her childhood friend Oscar, who now runs his late father's bar. Oscar warmly welcomes Gloria and offers her a job at the bar, which she accepts.

Working at the bar aggravates Gloria's alcoholism, often drinking with Oscar and his friends, Garth and Joel, until morning, then sleeps it off in her nearly empty childhood home. At the same time, a giant reptilian monster appears in Seoul, leaving death and destruction in its wake. Gloria realizes when she walks through a local playground at exactly 8:05 am, she causes the monster to manifest and can remotely control it.

Gloria shares her discovery with Oscar and his friends by dancing in the playground while they watch a newsfeed of the monster mimicking her movements. A helicopter launches a missile at the monster, causing Gloria pain. Gloria lashes out, destroying the helicopter, and killing the pilots. Horrified at what she has done, she collapses, causing widespread destruction. She awakens to find that a delighted Oscar also manifested in Seoul, but as a giant robot. Gloria tries to make amends by having the monster spell out an apology in Korean, to the delight of the South Korean people and media, and begins avoiding both the playground and alcohol.

After spending the night with Joel, Gloria discovers a drunken Oscar controlling the robot to taunt South Korea. After a tense confrontation, she makes him leave. Oscar thinks something happened between Gloria and Joel, becoming jealous. That night, he drunkenly insults his friends at the bar and demands Gloria have a beer, threatening to return to the playground if she refuses. The next morning, a sober Oscar apologizes to Gloria.

Tim pays a visit to Gloria, but is irritated by her living situation before apologizing. Upon meeting Tim at the bar, Oscar provokes a confrontation by setting off fireworks indoors. Tim tries to get Gloria to leave with him, but she stays to curb Oscar's destructive behavior. Oscar visits Gloria’s house to prevent her from leaving, and Gloria recalls their childhood; as a child, Gloria made a paper diorama of Seoul as a school project, which was blown into what would later become the playground; a young Oscar retrieved it, but destroyed it out of jealousy. Gloria's anger triggered lightning which strikes both of them, as well as their toys; Gloria’s being a reptilian monster; Oscar’s being a robot.

In the present, Gloria recognizes that Oscar's manipulative behavior arises from his self hatred at never having amounted to anything; the robot manifests as his way of making himself feel important. After deciding to leave town, Gloria races Oscar for the playground. Oscar incapacitates her and destroys a large portion of Seoul, killing hundreds of people. Oscar warns Gloria that for every day she is not with him, he will commence further rampages.

Shortly after, Gloria makes a trip to South Korea, apologizing to Tim over the phone, but says she owes him no explanations as he had ended their relationship.  At 8:05 am in the US, Oscar carries out his threat, making his robot manifest in Seoul. Gloria walks towards it in Seoul, making her monster appear at the playground back home. Gloria’s monster catches Oscar and flings him over the horizon, causing the robot to disappear. Gloria retreats to a bar and asks the bartender if she would like to hear an amazing story. The bartender says yes, and offers Gloria a drink, at which Gloria sighs.

Hathaway was the first actress to sign on at a time when the project had no financial backing.[6] Hathaway heard about the script after finding herself "in a little bit of an artistic no man's land" for inspiration. Director Jonathan Demme screened for her a copy of A Field in England, after which Hathaway decided that it represented exactly the type of movie she wanted to make.[7] After asking her representation to see a similar script that she could join, she was sent the Colossal script.[7] Hathaway found herself attracted to the genre-hopping nature of the script, later comparing it to Being John Malkovich, one of her favorite films.[6]

Prior to the start of filming, Japanese company Toho brought a lawsuit against Voltage Pictures for unauthorized usage of Godzilla's image and stills from previous Godzilla films in emails and press documents sent to potential investors.[8] A settlement was reached that October.[9]

Principal photography on the film also began in Vancouver on October 18, 2015,[10][11][12] and ended on November 25, 2015.[13] No motion captured footage was used for the creation of the monster; rather, footage of Hathaway acting out her parts was given to the CG team, who used this as reference points.[14] The CG artists, as opposed to Vigalondo, were responsible for the look of the monster itself. Vigalondo stated that this was partly due to his lack of artistic skill and partly due to him "[wanting] them to feel like characters that felt like a part of the genre we're playing with".[14]

The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2016.[15] Shortly after, an unnamed Chinese company acquired distribution rights to the film,[16] which was later announced as Neon, a newly-founded distribution company.[17] It held its European premiere at the San Sebastián International Film Festival on September 19, 2016.[18] The film was selected as the closing screening for Fantastic Fest at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar on September 29, 2016, where it was awarded Best Picture in the Fantastic Features section.[19][20] It was screened at the Sitges Film Festival on October 7, 2016.[21] The film went on to screen at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2017,[22] and at South by Southwest on March 10, 2017.[23] The film began a limited theatrical release in the United States on April 7, 2017.[24] In South Korea, the film was released on April 20 by Dreamfact Entertainment. It was released in Canadian theaters the following day, on April 21, by Mongrel Media.[25] In Spain, the film was co-distributed by Versus Entertainment and Movistar+. It premiered as an exclusive preview on June 29, 2017 on Movistar Estrenos before it was released theatrically the following day, on June 30, by Versus Entertainment.[26]

As the film's director claimed the film was "The Cheapest Godzilla movie ever made," and showed photos of the character in its showing at the Cannes Film Festival, Godzilla's copyright owner, Toho, was not pleased. As a result of a settlement of the lawsuit which took place before the film was even released, the film's location was moved from Tokyo to Seoul, South Korea, and that the movie would not use a derivative of Godzilla.[39]

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