This is the Japanese B1 for the release of Godzilla 2000, the twenty-third film in the series featuring the King of the Kaiju (giant monsters). The film was also the first release in the third generation of Godzilla films, which is known as the Millennium Series. Studio Toho decided the film would be a reboot meaning it had no continuity with earlier films in the series, except for the 1954 original.

Set in 1999, we learn that Japan has suffered other Godzilla attacks since the 1950s and the Godzilla Prediction Network (GPN) was formed in response by scientists who aim to predict his next landfall. In 1999 he appears at the same time as the Crisis Control Intelligence (CCI) find a mysterious rock-like object at the bottom of the Japan Trench which takes off during an operation to salvage it. Godzilla follows and is blasted by the object causing him to retreat, but not before his atomic breath causes the rock to break open revealing an unusual blue alien craft.

The craft flies to Tokyo and begins to download information from the city’s computer network as the aliens try to discover more about Godzilla’s regenerative properties, named by the GPN scientists as Regenerator G1. When Big G arrives and once again attacks the craft, the aliens steal some of his DNA during the battle and use it to attempt to reform themselves as a giant Millennian. Unfortunately Earth’s atmosphere is different to their own and the creature mutates into the hideous gigantic Orga and begins a final battle with Godzilla.

The film featured a new design of for the famous beast with a notably meaner looking face and large scales on his back, replacing the tired costume used for previous films in the series. Godzilla 2000’s relative success at the Japanese box-office saw Columbia Tristar decide to release the film in the US (the last Japanese Godzilla film to get a cinema release was Godzilla 1985). The distributor decided to edit the film for pacing reasons and removed about 8 minutes from its running time, whilst also completely re-editing the sound design and also injecting quite a bit of humour into the dubbed script. Unfortunately, poor box-office receipts meant that future entries in the Millennium series were released straight to DVD in the States.

The trailer for the US release can be viewed on YouTube.

Striking Tom Chantrell artwork for this Roger Corman-produced cult classic Death Race 2000. It’s set in a dystopian America where deadly cross-country road races are the national sport and focuses on the teams of racers as they drive from coast to coast smashing into anything that gets in their way (pedestrians equal points).

It features a memorable turn by David Carradine as part-man, part-machine Frankenstein, who apparently wanted a change of role after having just left his iconic TV series ‘Kung Fu‘. This is also considered by many to be Sylvester Stallone’s breakout role and one which, according to IMDb salary details, he apparently only received $700 for.

The artwork is unique to this UK quad and is one of my favourite of Chantrell’s myriad designs. A minor bit of trivia is that it uses the American poster‘s tagline but changes the word ‘felony’ to ‘crime’.

The superb original trailer is on YouTube.

Stanley Kubrick’s classic 1971 dystopian sci-fi, A Clockwork Orange, was met with controversy as soon as it was released in 1971, despite being a hit with UK and US audiences and earning box-office profits several times its original production budget. Unfortunately for UK audiences, the film was withdrawn from distribution in 1973 at the insistence of Kubrick himself following a number of death threats that were apparently received by the director and his family. These threats had been the result of the film being implicated, or at least referenced, in several high-profile criminal cases, including one in which an elderly vagrant had been kicked to death, mirroring an infamous scene in Kubrick’s film.

Despite being freely available across the rest of Europe and in the US, the film remained out of UK cinemas and, during the 1980s, off British video rental shop shelves. When the legendary London cinema the Scala Film Club decided to show the film in 1993 they were sued by Warner Bros at Kubrick’s insistence. The studio won the court case and the cinema club was effectively bankrupt, with plans for expansion quickly shelved. The club produced its last ‘what’s on’ calendar in May 1993 and the Scala converted to a music venue towards the end of the 1990s.

When Kubrick died in 1999 the ban was relaxed and the film was finally made available on VHS and DVD. A limited cinema run also took place and this quad was produced at the time. It uses part of the original artwork that featured on posters for the film around the world, which was painted by the renowned British artist Philip Castle. The final one sheet for the film is one of the most iconic posters of all time, with the same painting being used to promote the film all over the world, and it continues to be used to promote the film to this day. The original UK quad features more of Castle’s artwork and a more muted colour scheme, but features the same tag-line.

Born in London in 1943, Philip Castle’s design career has seen him working on album covers for some of the biggest names in British music, including Wings, Mott the Hoople and Pulp. His skills were utilised for the famous cover for David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane, which saw him airbrushing over a photograph by Celia Philo. He also worked on the cover for the legendary computer game Elite. In 1987 Kubrick and Castle would collaborate once more on the poster for Full Metal Jacket, which again proved to be a seminal piece of work. There’s an interesting interview with Castle available to watch on YouTube in which he discusses his work with Kubrick.

This page features several examples of his brilliant work and there are multiple images tagged on Tumblr. The posters I’ve collected by him can be seen here.

An iconic image of Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman features on this US one sheet for the release of the adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis‘s novel American Psycho. Although Bale had been appearing in films since the 1980s, with his lead role as the young boy in Spielberg’s 1987 film Empire of the Sun a notable highlight, it was American Psycho that was a real breakout role and ultimately led to his casting as Batman in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy (and subsequent global megastar status).

The story focuses on Bateman, a wealthy young banking executive who works at his father’s financial firm on Wall Street and spends his time materially competing with co-workers and dining at expensive restaurants in order to keep up appearances with friends and his fiancee Evelyn. Bateman is also a psychopath who spends his evenings indulging in acts of violence and ill-advised liaisons with prostitutes. A series of events see him murdering a colleague and entering into a series of violent encounters that nearly lead to his apprehension, but is all as it seems?

Bale is notorious for his use of method acting and the portrayal of Bateman was given his full attention. Apparently ‘the actor spent months tanning himself and working out in order to achieve the look of Bateman’s perfectly sculpted body’. The actor recalls: “I started going swimming on Sundays, and here was me, with this white English body, emerging with a stripy arse; not such a good look.”

This one sheet was created by the American design agency Indika Entertainment Advertising, which was founded in 1994 by James Verdesoto and Vivek Mathur and is based in New York City. They work on print and web campaigns for films, TV shows and home entertainment and have won multiple awards for their work over the years. One of their most iconic posters is the teaser one sheet for Pulp Fiction. They also designed the teaser one sheet for American Psycho.

This is the B2 poster for the Japanese release of Godzilla vs. Megaguirus which was the 24th film in the long-running franchise featuring the King of the Kaiju (giant monsters). The film was also the second release in the third generation of Godzilla films (known as the Millennium Series), which are all standalone (with the exception of Godzilla: Tokyo SOS) and were mooted as ‘alternative universe’ stories. It ended up as the least financially successful film in the Millennium series, with the special effects director Kenji Suzuki apparently taking the blame. Referencing the first film, the story sets up a universe in Godzilla attacks the first Japanese nuclear power plant in 1966 which led to the formation of a section of the Japanese Self Defence Force called G-Graspers, dedicated to fighting Godzilla.

After nuclear energy is replaced by ‘plasma energy’ in 1996 it is hoped that the kaiju will no longer attack Japanese cities in search of nuclear energy, but the plan fails and plasma energy is also eventually outlawed. Later in 2001 an experimental satellite weapon called the Dimension Tide is fired and opens up a wormhole through which a prehistoric dragonfly appears, lays an egg and disappears back through the wormhole. A young boy discovers the egg and takes it with him when he moves to Tokyo, but when the egg starts oozing a strange liquid the boy throws it into the sewers. The egg is actually hundreds of smaller eggs which start to grow on contact with water and evolve into large dragonfly larvae which soon hatch and become adult Meganulon.

When Godzilla attacks Tokyo once more, the dragonflies are attracted to his energy and engage him in battle, but they are no match for the kaiju’s power and are almost all obliterated. Those that survive return to the sewers and, with an amount of energy taken from Godzilla, they inject a large cocoon that hatches as Megaguirus, queen of the Meganulon, and she immediately heads towards Godzilla, ready for an epic showdown.

The artwork on this poster is by Noriyoshi Ohrai, my favourite Japanese artist and certainly in my top five greatest film poster illustrators of all time. He’s responsible for a number of other posters in the Godzilla franchise, some of which can be seen here. He also worked on a number of Star Wars related posters, including this lovely 1982 B2 to celebrate the release of the Japanese dubbed version of the original film. In March 2014 a retrospective exhibition was held in Japan of Ohrai’s work and I made the trip over to Miyazaki to see the exhibition. I’m very glad I did as it featured most of his original artwork and a whole array of posters and book covers. A full report will follow soon.

The posters I’ve managed to collect by Noriyoshi Ohrai can be seen by clicking here.

A Japanese double-bill poster for re-release of ace director Werner Herzog‘s two masterpieces. Made ten years apart, both films star Klaus Kinski, a frequent collaborator, and the stories behind the making of the films are legendary.

Fitzcarraldo tells the true story of  one man’s obsession to build an opera house in the Peruvian jungle, a task that sees him having to drag a full-sized steamer boat over a mountain from one river to another. Rather than rely on special effects or clever editing, Herzog and the crew actually did drag a steamer boat over a mountain! The story of the shoot was told in the excellent documentary Burden of Dreams.

Aguirre, Wrath of God was a similarly chaotic and pressured shoot and the story goes that when Kinski decided to leave the set and return home, Herzog pulled a gun on him and threatened to shoot him and then turn the gun on himself.

Herzog once said of Kinski: “People think we had a love-hate relationship. Well, I did not love him, nor did I hate him. We had mutual respect for each other, even as we both planned each other’s murder”.

I believe this double-bill poster was for a Japanese release in either 2000 or 2001 and the artwork is by an artist called Suzuki Cohjizukin about whom I know very little. Some of his other works can be found with a google search but if anyone knows anything more about him please get in touch.

Here are the original trailers for Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre.