The King of Monsters invaded San Diego Comic-Con in Hall H this Saturday in a panel hosted by Legendary Pictures

On the panel was director Gareth Edwards, and stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, and Bryan Cranston. The Legendary panel was moderated by Chris Hardwick.

The panel began with Warner Bros./Legendary’s now traditional opening of the projection screens on either side of the main screen to create a more immersive experience. Over these screens, A-bomb footage played, leading to the film’s title over the screens, followed by a re-screening of last year’s Con footage.

Edwards said at this point, they’ve just finished principal photography, and he felt like he’s been in a bubble for a year. He feels grateful to Legendary/Warners for giving him the creative freedom to do what he’s been able to do. Olson expected her time on the film to be different from her typical indie shoots, but for her the shoot felt surprisingly small. Taylor-Johnson also admired the intimate, family feeling on the set.

For Cranston, Godzilla was always his favorite monster of his youth, because he was unapologetic in his destruction. He was at first apprehensive about taking on this role, because of how enormous the scale of the film is, but after watching Edwards’ previous film, Monsters, he had the confidence that he was going to be able to tell an intimate story,

Edwards took the time to work out the story and find what characters to follow in the story. They filmed Godzilla in Canada, at which Cranston joked about how polite the Canadian Godzilla is. Edwards recalls being questioned at Immigration when he was coming into Canada to shoot Godzilla and the immigration officer told him “Don’t fuck it up, man.”

In the Q&A portion, a fan wanted to know how much pressure Edwards felt to keep to the tradition of Toho Godzilla, to which he answered that he gave himself the most pressure to make it part of the Toho legacy. He had a wish list of actors he wanted to work with and wanted to have a story replete with heart and soul and felt he accomplished this.

Hardwick announced they had something special to show, at which Cranston began to unbutton his fly, saying Godzilla is his pet name for it. Then Edwards introduced a clip of footage from the film showing a winged, pterodactyl-type kaiju attacking a Tokyo airport, while the giant foot of Godzilla steps in to join the fight.

Panel Photos

The Doom Crew got to check out the Godzilla Encounter here at SDCC, so take a look at our coverage, which includes tons of pictures.

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[All photos by Dave3 for Geeks of Doom.]