The Newest Godzilla Would Have Taken 450 Years To Design On A Single Computer

On May 16th, the newest incarnation of cinema's most nefarious mega-monster will start surging through movie theaters across the States. This is the first Godzilla re-boot in a decade, and based on what we know so far about this installment in the Kaiju franchise, this version genuinely looks awesome. We're talking really epic. It doesn't hurt that it stars Bryan Cranston in his first leading gig since Breaking Bad's finale.

But let's be honest, it's the metropolis-razing, indominatable creature who uses skyscrapers as toothpicks that we're all vying to watch in awe. Though the trailer only teased us with a few quick glimpses of Godzilla, we now have some actual statistics and information about the VFX used to spawn this beast that give us a better idea of how hair-raisingly intense 2014's version of the monster truly is:

The Movie Bit has made a video compiling all the statistics from both the production of the feature, as well as the nitty gritty measurements of what this monster would look like if it were actually real. To start, the video effects are so sharp and powerful, it would take 445 Years to render Godzilla on a single computer. In other words, the design team would have had to start working during the Renaissance to get this beast up to par for a May 2014 release.

Not only were 4 CGI artists hired from Moving Picture Company to create the scales, but it took them 6 months to fully nail the texture, which includes 500,00 polygons used in the 3D-modeling process. Oh, and the four CGI gurus are on top of the 762 other visual effects crew members hired to work on this film. To give a little more VFX insight on the making of Godzilla, there are 960 visual effects shots through the whole film, and 327 shots specifically of the monster. The trailer might just tantalize us with a couple Kaiju cameos, but it sounds like the eponymous giant will be getting plenty of screen-time.

Now that it's crystal clear that this colossal reptilian is a visual tour de force, let's translate all those polygons into what Godzilla would look like if we were in the film with it (though realistically we wouldn't have a chance to really measure him as we'd be darting for the hills, running from our inevitable doom).

At 355-feet-tall with a tail that stretches 550-feet, this is the tallest onscreen Godzilla ever. He may only have 60 teeth, but each canine is about 4-feet-long and 2-feet wide—about the size of a thin (and Hattori Hanzo-sharp) boogie board. The Movie Bit also added that it would take 90,000 tons of water to fill the monster to its brim. Good luck drowning this guy, though.

And his blood-curdling screech? To get that scream as terrifying as humanly possible, the movie's creators used 100,000 watts of power channeled through a huge speaker to achieve the perfect sound. Within the film's world, the roar travels approximately 3 miles. Imagine hearing that and not peeing yourself. Not gonna happen..

Watch the trailer of the film, and see some extra statistics about this gargantuan below. He's coming for you:

Height: 355ft (108.2m) Godzilla’s towering height in the 2014 film—the tallest onscreen incarnation ever

Tail: 550ft 4in (167.74m) Total length of Godzilla’s spiked tail

Volume: 89,724 m3 Godzilla’s total volume in the 2014 film

Volume: 90,000 tons Godzilla’s volume if filled with water

Teeth: 1.73ft (53cm) Depth of Godzilla’s canine teeth at their widest point

Teeth: 3.51ft (1.07m)  Length from the root to the tips of Godzilla’s canine teeth

Teeth: 60 Teeth in Godzilla’s mouth

Roar: 3 miles (4.83km) Approximate distance Godzilla’s roar reverberates. (100,000W Power of the 12-foot-high, 18-foot-wide speaker array from which the sound designers blasted Godzilla’s roar to record the sound in a “real world” context)

Feet: 58ft (17.66m)  Total width of Godzilla’s feet across the widest point

Feet: 60ft (18.18m) Length of Godzilla’s footprint from toe to heel

Fins: 89 Dorsal fins spiking down Godzilla’s back from his head to the tip of his tail

The VFX:

- 4 CGI artists from Motion Picture Company (MPC) to create Godzilla’s scales

- 6 Months MPC’s CGI artists spent animating Godzilla’s scales in their full texture and detail

- 327 Total number of creature visual effects shots created by MPC for the 2014 Godzilla

- 762 Number of visual effects crew working on Godzilla

- 960 Total number of visual effects shots in Godzilla

- 360° Entire breadth of the San Francisco skyline captured from multiple angles by visual effects technicians, which were merged into a 3D city backdrop for the film’s epic finale

- 418 Total number of visual effects shots encompassing backgrounds and environments created by Double Negative for the 2014 Godzilla

- 500,000 Polygons used by MPC artists to create the Godzilla 3D model

- 445 Years it would take to render Godzilla on a single computer; an MPC artist would have had to start in the 16th Century, 1570

The Shooting

- 6 Cities where Godzilla was filmed

- 7 Total filming units enlisted in the production on Godzilla

- 98 Sets created by production designer Owen Paterson and his team for the film

- 500 Approximate number of crew members on Gareth Edwards’ mammoth production of Godzilla

- 400ft (122m) Stretch of the 8,980-ft-long Golden Gate Bridge built on the backlot of the Canadian Motion Picture Park studios

- $160 Million budget

Yeah, so this scaled leviathan is definitely an upgrade from past Godzillas. To get deeper into the evolution of this, well, evolved creature—our friends at Motherboard recently wrote a brief history of our favorite city-shattering, nuclear nightmare.

All stats and images via The Movie Bit

Related: 

An Inside Look At The VFX That Brought "The Grand Budapest Hotel" To Life

Hollywood Blockbusters Minus The VFX

Creative Dataplot Asks: Does Money Make A Movie Better?

@zachsokol