SAN DIEGO – In an afternoon packed with new footage from films like The Hobbit, Man of Steel and Pacific Rim, Legendary Pictures head Thomas Tull sneaked in one more little surprise for the Comic-Con faithful: A sneak peek at his studio's upcoming Godzilla remake.

Without even saying what he was about to show, Tull told the Hall H diehards Saturday that he had something he wanted to share. What played was a short-but-oh-so-mouthwatering tease of the apocalyptic-looking Godzilla film.

Showing scenes of a dusty metropolis crushed into a pile of rubble complete with hollowed-out buildings, the less-than-a-minute clip's voiceover – by J. Robert Oppenheimer – intoned, "We knew the world would not be the same.... A few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture.... Vishnu takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become death, destroyer of worlds.'" Once the line was completed, the screen flashed to a brief look at a terrifying-looking Godzilla in profile.

"I've loved Godzilla since I was a kid, and frankly we just wanted to see a kickass Godzilla movie," Tull said following the clip.

Legendary announced that it was going to be working on a new Godzilla flick years ago, but very little if anything had surfaced about the film before Saturday's panel. Tull also brought out the film's director, Gareth Edwards, who previously wrote and directed Monsters and who Tull said was "going to kick ass on Godzilla." Edwards explained what he wanted to do to reboot the beloved character in very simple and frank terms.

"I'm just going to take it really seriously," Edwards said. "I'd like to see this movie this way all my life, really.... There's nothing sci-fi about this movie, it's very grounded, realistic."

Based on the early teaser, Edwards is holding true to that. Everything in the clip looked gritty and grimy – like if the final monster-iffic scenes of Cloverfield had been shot in the style of District 9. And based on the Justin-Bieber-fans level of screaming the images drew from the Comic-Con crowd, there are now quite a few people dying to see what Edwards has in store.