14 DAY TRIAL // Gareth Edwards, the director for the new “Godzilla” movie, thought it would be a nice tribute to have the actor in the original movie, Akira Takarada, do a cameo scene right at the beginning of his movie, a sort of passing the torch thing, but it wasn't meant to be.
Edwards had arranged to have the star of the 1954 Japanese monster movie appear in his film and did a scene in which he appears as an immigration officer. He was hoping that Godzilla fans would pick up on that and realize the tribute he was paying to the original.
Sadly, the scene didn't make the final cut as Edwards claims, “He did a cameo for us on day one. It felt very appropriate at the time because he played the immigrations officer that welcomes Aaron's character to Japan. So it was this perfect constructed shot.”
He goes on to reveal the cause of the cutting by explaining that “there was a lot of pressure to get on with the adventure and get to the monsters as soon as possible. I hung onto that scene till the last second and it was still deemed that we had to get it shorter so that scene ended up having to go, which is my biggest regret.”
The embarrassed director was then forced to make amends with Takarada, “I've written to him and he's a real gentleman and was understanding, but it's just one of those horrible things about the process.”