“It took a good year, if not a year and a half, to land on the story that felt right to everybody. And what’s at the heart of our movie, which I think is at the heart of the original, is the idea of man versus nature. That if you mess with nature, you’re going to lose. For a long time we’ve thought of ourselves as the alpha predator of the planet, that we can do what we want.

“Godzilla takes the assumption that we’re not the alpha predator. What if there’s something else? With the nuclear age in the original, we embrace that theme in this, that there’s a Pandora’s box, which can be used to our advantage or disadvantage. Godzilla’s putting nature back in balance.”

5. Godzilla’s design took approximately one year

While Edwards and his team mulled over the story possibilities, there was also the design of the mighty Godzilla himself to consider. He’s beloved character who’s gradually evolved over a succession of movies at Toho, and any redesign would have to respect the character’s 60-year heritage.

“I thought it was going to be a really simple task to design Godzilla,” Edwards said. “He’s already designed – you just copy him, right? But it took a year, the process of getting him right. It was kind of like when you witness a crime, and the police say, ‘Well, what did he look like?’ And you go, ‘Well, he had this…’ and you’d try to draw it, but you realise you can’t. It was just this trial-and-error thing. WETA in New Zealand did the design for a lot of Godzilla, and it was a back-and-forth thing until we could rotate him from every angle, and look at every little bit. I’m really proud of the way he turned out.”

Although we only saw Godzilla in brief, dust-shrouded glimpses in the footage, Edwards did reveal that the new incarnation of the monsters stands at 350 feet – around double the height of the one seen in the 1954 film (which stood at approximately 165 feet). Godzilla’s size was also taken into careful consideration – the director said that he wanted the creature to be large enough to be imposing, yet still small enough that he can emerge from behind a thicket of skyscrapers and scare the hell out of everybody.

6. The trailer’s temporary score was inspired by an iPhone on shuffle