Mothra (film) - Production

Production

Based on the novel The Luminous Fairies and Mothra, this adaptation was penned by Shinichi Sekizawa, who submitted his first draft proposal in 1960. Vaguely titled The Giant Monster Thing, this early concept featured a race of tiny women alongside the movie's giant monster. A name for the fairies was not specified in this first proposal, as apparently even at this early stage Sekizawa was contemplating a name change from their original title of the Airenas from the book.

In an unusual turn of events, another draft proposal was submitted shortly after. Re-titled Giant Monster Mothra, this second proposal fleshed out the concept more, giving the small women the name of the "Pichi Fairies" while citing that five would be seen during the course of the film. The size of the Pichi Fairies was stated as being 60 centimeters, showing a strange level of detail in this respect for a draft proposal. For reference, that would have been roughly twice the size of the Shobijin. The idea was seen as a winner, as a more fleshed out screenplay was finally commissioned.

In 1960, the first script for the production was completed, and was accompanied by a storyboard to help relate the concept. The storyboard, infamous for showing a rather frightening interpretation of Mothra, displayed a number of different concepts compared to the final film, including Mothra squaring off with a squadron of jets and also building a cocoon on the Diet Building, a concept that would eventually return in Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992). A lot of this was about to change, though, with the signing of two popular singers to the project.

On January 14, 1961, the second draft of Giant Monster Mothra was submitted. Since the first draft, the singing duet The Peanuts (Emi and Yumi Ito) had been attached to the production. Seeing a very lucrative idea in the making, the fairy role was altered to just that of the singing duo, while their name was also changed to the Shobijin. The concept would be altered even further by Sekizawa, as a third draft of the script was submitted on February 5 of that same year. Production on the movie was now in full swing, although the name Giant Monster Mothra hanged around for quite awhile, even being used on advance posters before it was shortened to simply Mothra (1961) for its final release.

The original climax for Mothra was entirely different from what ended up in the final print. Originally, Nelson and his group had planned to kidnap Shinji Chujo for a longer period of time, rather than leaving him tied up as they fled the country. Instead, they took the small boy on a private plane as they attempted to flee, only to accidentally crash near a mountainside. Meanwhile, the film's heroes are in close pursuit, having brought along the authorities to help save the boy. All of this takes place while Mothra is still in its cocoon, meaning that Fukuda and the others weren't originally planned to witness the birth of Mothra's Imago form. Instead they give chase to Nelson as Mothra breaks free after the Atomic Ray Gun attack. She then immediately flies to the mountainside and kills Nelson and goes back to Infant island with Shobijin.

It's hard to say how much of the original climax was finished before being cut, but there are a number of black and white production stills showing that the mountain chase sequence was filmed, at least in part; however, no photos have been seen of the story boarded sequence relating to the plane crash that would have occurred just before it.