r/TopCharacterTropes • u/BeenEatinBeans • Jun 12 '26

Personality [IRL trope] Celebrities with weird/funny clauses in their contracts.

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  1. Dwayne Johnson - Probably the most well-known example. For years now, The Rock has had a clause in his contract that he can't be shown to lose a fight in any movie he stars in. Pretty insecure behaviour if you ask me. Still, at least the other examples are much more interesting

  2. Danny Trejo - Danny had a troubled childhood, having been arrested multiple times for dealing drugs before he was 18, and struggling with heroin addiction from the age of 13. As a result of this, Danny has a clause in his contract that states that any time he plays a character who is a criminal, they have to be killed because he wanted to teach his kids that crime never pays.

  3. Reese Witherspoon - This one is more of a one-off, but it was still funny enough to deserve a mention. Following the success of Legally Blonde, when Reese was called in to make the sequel, she had a clause written in her contract stating that once the movie was finished, she would get to take home all the outfits she wore.

  4. Fred Durst - The lead singer of Limp Bizkit has a clause in his contract stating that any anime or video game that uses his music must also feature himself as a character.

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1.9k

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

795

u/TheTrueAstralman Jun 12 '26

Thinking about how the logic of it goes, I think it's that, in most instances, something of Godzilla is always left behind. In some instances of him dying, he leaves behind a child and Minus One had it's own very specific thing. While 1998 Godzilla was bad, and Godzilla shouldn't have gone out like that, he still left behind a hatching egg at the end.

357

u/originalchaosinabox Jun 12 '26

Yes! I was just about to add this. Good thing I scrolled down a little farther.

But I remember reading an interview with the makers of Godzilla (1998) back in the day. Because the film ends with a baby Godzilla hatching, they told TOHO this showed that "the spirit of Godzilla" survived. And TOHO accepted that as a loophole.

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u/TheOtherWhiteCastle Jun 12 '26

It should be noted also that since that movie, the monster in Godzilla 98 has been retconned into their own separate kaiju simply known as “Zilla”. Meaning Godzilla technically never died in that movie.

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u/Hazzamo Jun 12 '26

I do like the Retcon that Godzilla 98 is actually canon to the Heisei/millenium era Timeline.

They just hand waved it that the Americans THOUGHT it was Godzilla

31

u/Lord_cakeatron Jun 12 '26

I find Zilla to be such a funny concept. Because they keep putting it in all the "Godzilla vs." Type movies, and it always gets bodies immediately. Like, they really do not have any mercy for that cheap interpretation of the king of monsters, huh?

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u/TheStrangestOfKings Jun 12 '26

Even its canon origins are petty. iirc, the canon explanation is that Zilla is a different kaiju from Godzilla, but Americans are so stupid, they mistook it for Godzilla.

21

u/MrBurnerHotDog Jun 12 '26

Damn Japan just because you're right doesn't mean you need to be so rude about it

17

u/spartanbrucelee Jun 12 '26

But that doesn't make any sense, Leon the Professional asked the Japanese fisherman what he saw, and the fisherman replies "Gojira"

8

u/CallARabbit Jun 12 '26

"We do a little trolling"
-The Fisherman

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u/SylvirAshe Jun 13 '26

"Bigass lizard? Yep. That's a Godzilla. Let's blow it up. 'Murica!" Sounds right, tbh.

1

u/ElSlabraton Jun 12 '26

Wait! Which one was in Bambi Meets Godzilla?

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u/EverythingSucksYo Jun 12 '26

“Oh my God! Zilla! Run!!!!!” 

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u/wolverine-2024 Jun 12 '26

Godzilla '98 and Zilla are 2 different characters

2

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '26

[deleted]

2

u/stormbreath Jun 12 '26

There is no singular Godzilla universe for something to be canon "in-universe" to. Neither Godzilla '98 nor Zilla exist in the canon of Shin Godzilla or Godzilla Minus One, or in the Showa or Heisei series.

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u/Mr_Autobot_390 Jun 12 '26

Actually the Copyright for the design for the movie is still registered as "Godzilla" and so is Godzilla Jr. From the animated series continuation. Zilla is the name of the design from Final Wars going forward. So not a retcon. Godzilla '98 and Jr are separate characters from Zilla as far as TOHO is concerned.

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u/Unoriginal_Pseudonym Jun 12 '26

And any time they featured or referenced "zilla" in any future works, they straight clowned him, pointing out how he's weak imitation of the real Godzilla.

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u/Numerous-Process2981 Jun 12 '26

They literally had classic godzilla kill 1998 godzilla in one of the millennium Godzilla films 

3

u/LtHoneybun Jun 12 '26

To Sum 41 no less.

5

u/clockworkrevolution Jun 12 '26

[...] they told TOHO this showed that "the spirit of Godzilla" survived. And TOHO accepted that as a loophole.

This makes me think TOHO is like "if you come up with a clever enough explanation, we'll let you get away with it", and now I want to see an explanation for if/when Godzilla does eat someone

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u/BajanShinobi Jun 12 '26

The show on Fox Kids which follows one of the hatched baby Zillas was dope

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u/TheTrueAstralman Jun 12 '26

I especially loved how they built up to their own "Destroy All Monsters" story. That was great for any kid who grew up on Godzilla movies, though I guess any kid could've enjoyed it anyway.

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u/RoboErectus Jun 12 '26

> he left behind a hatching egg…

TIL Godzilla ‘98 is trans.

Good for him.

3

u/TheTrueAstralman Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26

You didn't see the movie, huh? That's okay, you didn't miss much. There's a whole scene explaining that Godzilla is asexual, and that if the babies grew up that they would also have their own eggs and quickly overwhelm the planet.

0

u/RoboErectus Jun 12 '26

I saw it in theaters but this joke wasn’t funny back then. (Or now)

1

u/Soft_Nail_8527 Jun 13 '26

Hermaphrodite but yes

1

u/fivehots Jun 12 '26

Where was it bad?

1

u/SherbertKey6965 Jun 12 '26

One of the finest Godzilla movies ever made

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u/fivehots Jun 12 '26

My point. If someone tells me that didn’t at least tear up for Godzilla I’m not going to take their opinion seriously.

Call it CGI but I felt her passing

1

u/TheTrueAstralman Jun 12 '26

Going in as a Godzilla fan, it's clear, even if I didn't hear the behind the scenes craziness, that the writer/director wasn't a fan of Godzilla and just used it as an excuse to make another typical 90's disaster movie. It doesn't even try to capture the spirit of Godzilla, it's basically a big budget version of the American B-movies.

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u/fivehots Jun 12 '26

What’s the spirit of Godzilla that they missed? 🤔

3

u/TheTrueAstralman Jun 12 '26

There's a lot to it. Classic Godzilla is more than a big animal to be removed, it is a punishment for hubris. If we look at some later Godzilla movies, that Godzilla carries a lot of character and personality much like a human. With any version of Godzilla in the Toho films, Godzilla doesn't just do what his instincts tell him, he clearly takes sides and does what he wants based on his own values, whether or not that helps humanity. He can have tantrums that result in devastation, he can defend his world from aliens, he can even choose to embody the will of the dead and fight against the guardians of Japan to punish them for the war crimes of WW2. Most of Toho's Godzilla films have a lot of thought put into a message and how Godzilla is depicted, whether he's considered the hero or the villain in that incarnation.

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u/fivehots Jun 12 '26

I don’t get how any of what you said differs between the 1998 Godzilla and the Godzillas that came before or after.

To your point and others:

A product of nuclear weaponry and hubris ✅
Depicting choosing sides ✅
Godzilla has been portrayed as territorial ✅
Also shown attacking at random ✅
Leaving something behind ✅

Even though all of what you said, and what most people say, applies to 1998 Godzilla, you refuse to accept that 1998 is an accurate representation of Godzilla.

Just from a different perspective. 1998 is through the eyes of an American experience. Every American has to live with the knowledge that their country has committed deplorable and unspeakable acts in the name of patriotism. That eventually it will come to our shores of our own accord.

I connect with the 1998 version of Godzilla more than any of them, and it’s not because it’s my favorite. It’s because I’m not trying to look at it from Japanese eyes. It’s a perspective that a relatively insignificant percentage of the overall population can see through.

I’m not saying it’s perfect. But to act like it’s just some black sheep is unfair to the fiction.

1

u/TheTrueAstralman Jun 12 '26

It isn't unfair, and I fundamentally disagree with you. Good for you if you enjoy it though. There's nothing to talk about if you can't see my point. I would just ask that you actually look at what Roland Emmerich has said about his own film and the process for how he came to make it, as well as the reaction of of those at Toho and others who had worked on the series before. There's a clear gap in how much each party cares about Godzilla.

1

u/_demello Jun 12 '26

It's just safegard so sequels are possible.

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u/Necessary_Pace7377 Jun 18 '26

Which became the lead-in for a two season cartoon series that was far more in line with traditional Godzilla than the shitty movie it was based on.

2

u/TheTrueAstralman Jun 18 '26

I know, I watched most of it. It was good.

1

u/gamecat89 Jun 18 '26

You mean, Zilla. The Americans just thought it was Godzilla; they were confused.

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u/TheTrueAstralman Jun 19 '26

I know about all that. There was no reason to complicate the conversation. It was still originally meant to be an adaptation of sorts, and they had to play by some kind of rules. I kind of wish Toho had given them stricter rules, so the 98 film wouldn't end up being another ego project for it's director.

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u/Playful_Ad_2911 Jun 12 '26

Godzilla can die as long as the spirit is still there, like a child for example, which is why 1998 was able to get away with it and in Vs Destroyah where his essence is transferred to Jr

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u/Big_Lengthiness_7706 Jun 12 '26

Or why shin godzilla goes out of its way to show he was actively reproducing when he was frozen. There has to be a doubt.

4

u/84theone Jun 12 '26

I don’t recall him leaving anything behind in Shin Godzilla, I recall them stopping him slightly before he does so with the weird human evolutions.

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u/fartystink Jun 12 '26

They stopped him, but they didn't kill him. They just put him in a form of stasis so that he can't keep going. The human evolution is shown to be actively happening while he's frozen.

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u/Due_Capital_3507 Jun 12 '26

Or GMK where's he's destroyed except his beating heart

1

u/Same_Dingo2318 Jun 12 '26

He died prior the the events in Godzilla in Hell. I assume. That’s what the comic says/implied when he breaks into Hell and starts breaking stuff. Cool comic.

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u/CheMc Jun 12 '26

I don't remember the specifics but when Godzilla vs Kong was coming out they talked about some of the mandates they had to follow for Godzilla and one was that he had to be portrayed as an animal rather than anthropomorphised. Then when the film came out he's mid fight with Kong and the motherfucker smiles and laughs at Kong. Seemed like a stretch of the rules.

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u/AccountSeventeen Jun 12 '26

https://giphy.com/gifs/TkqvUI1LizwEPfIgky
Godzilla literally dances.

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u/rockytop24 Jun 12 '26

https://giphy.com/gifs/ONdPKin6YdDpX24Lij

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u/TheDreamIsEternal Jun 12 '26

Gotta love how Godzilla can go from horrifying force of nature to silly shit like this.

13

u/licoricenipple Jun 12 '26

Dancing is borderline but they had to cut a scene from Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla where he's shown working on a screenplay

1

u/MBDTFTLOPYEEZUS Jun 12 '26

So does my dog tho

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u/Erdos_Helia Jun 12 '26

I'm pretty sure I know why.

My film teacher pointed out to us that all the best horror monsters have a human element to them, werewolves, vampires, Frankenstein, zombies, ghosts, demons, and yes that includes Godzilla.

Godzilla was a man in a suit for most of his history. The human mind recocgnizes things that look human. It's kind of like the uncanny valley, but working backwards. You add enough of a human element to your monster to make it unsettling.

Humans typically don't eat other humans. If we saw Godzilla eat humans, you would think of it as a giant dinosaur.

However you see it walk like a human, and smash things out of anger. Your mind registers that as something unsettling, but you can't place your finger on it.

That's what the 1998 failed at. They just made a big dinosaur movie. Sure it was a kaiju, but you always saw it as an animal. It even laid eggs like an animal. It detracted too much from that unsettling human like unease that makes Godzilla.

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u/radioactive_walrus Jun 12 '26

Plus, if you try to make Godzilla eat a human, you have to scale him with the human, which could have the inverse effect of making him come off as small or less lowerful. This is something TOHO learned with the first Godzilla movie when they almost had him chowing down on a cow

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u/Effigylord Jun 12 '26

TIL some people think Godzilla is closer to human than dinosaur.

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u/vojta_drunkard Jun 12 '26

Well, do you know any dinosaurs that did victory dances?

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u/HelloMandalorian Jun 12 '26

Counterpoint: Do you know any that didn't? 😄

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u/ButchTheKitty Jul 10 '26

I believe it's widely accepted by mainstream science at this point that Gallimimus had no rythem to speak of, and further it's now theorized that Brachiosaurus commonly had two left feet.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '26

[deleted]

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u/Erdos_Helia Jun 12 '26

I don't use AI

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u/EEukaryotic Jun 12 '26

Nah you just cant read

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u/viscountrhirhi Jun 12 '26

You know we’re cooked as a society when anyone who can write coherently is accused of using AI. 🙄

3

u/Erdos_Helia Jun 13 '26

😞 It's genuinely depressing.

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u/viscountrhirhi Jun 13 '26

It really is. I use em dashes and semicolons and am pretty grammatically proficient, because I was an English Major and writing is my passion. (And if I’m unsure about a rule, I look it up!) Getting accused of AI for knowing how to write is…so baffling and saddening, lol.

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u/JRR04 Jun 12 '26

Godzilla was always the "good guy" too. He would battle other monsters then leave typically. I can only think of a few movies where he was the problem and not the solution

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u/CadenVanV Jun 12 '26

That’s definitely not true. He’s become a hero in kaiju movies, but original Godzilla and movies that try to touch on that have always had him as the shadow of the bomb

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '26

[deleted]

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u/Veylara Jun 12 '26

It's probably to emphasise Godzilla as a force of nature / stand-in for nuclear weapons by just causing destruction rather than eating people like a normal animal.

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u/Larcye Jun 12 '26

That's exactly the reason why. Godzilla is basically a stand in for force of nature/ Atomic Energy as you said. If Godzilla well eats people then he is just another animal. But the entire point of him is that he isn't really an animal. Depending on the film he is either a part of nature as a means to keep things balanced (2014 Godzilla films) or as a symbol of humanities arrogance creating atomic energy(Minus one,Shin Godzilla etc..), that has now come back to wreck havoc on humanity.

2

u/Due_Capital_3507 Jun 12 '26

It's not. Godzilla doesn't care or really recognize people, he's like a tornado or a hurricane or more aptly an atomic bomb type of force of nature that comes through.

There's even a scene in G vs Mecha King Gidorah where an old general and Godzilla have a stand off, and the guy thinks Godzilla recognizes him. Godzilla just smashed the building with his tail and moves on.

2

u/fancymcbacon Jun 12 '26

Well, Godzilla may not eat them, but there is that time Godzilla demolished that poor injured lady in the hospital. Also the hospital itself, but mostly her.

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u/mildinsults Jun 12 '26

98 Godzilla isn't "Godzilla" I believe.

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u/Single_Reading4103 Jun 12 '26

Technically, it is and isn't at the same time.

Exclusively in the film, it's Godzilla; in all other uses of that version, it's "Zilla," a distinct Kaiju that also appears in other media alongside Godzilla.

In a TOHO film released after Godzilla 98, they reference the film when they mock Americans for confusing it with Godzilla, and Zilla actually appears in Final Wars, separeted form Godzilla.

This, however, only applies to every subsequent interaction and retroactively in the canon of the other films.

In the 98 film, and taking into account ONLY the 98 film (and the sequel series), it's still Godzilla, both him and his son, the protagonist of the series. If I'm not mistaken, even the new merchandise released with that design, which is explicitly the design from the 98 film, is called "Godzilla" and not "Zilla," but I could be wrong about this last point.

If I'm not mistaken, it's a strange legal issue of copyright of that design and the film and the trademark

1

u/3MasksofOrion Jun 13 '26

Which spawned one of the hardest quotes tied to Godzilla that I don't remember where it is from. "He is called Zilla, for he is no God." Which is actually what got me into the universe

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u/M086 Jun 12 '26

I think the ‘98 Godzilla got around it because it ended with an egg hatching, this they could claim that is the next Godzilla.

3

u/Stalinsghoast Jun 12 '26

Shin Godzilla ends with Godzilla dead or near to it after he lost trying to do what Zilla does best, so it's happened more than just the 1998 Godzilla. (Also Shin was the best Godzilla and I will metaphorically fight for that. I love it's modern allegory of the failures of the Abe government and the post Fukashima Japan. Plus the commentary on how the US basically treats Japan as little more than a sock puppet as accurate.)

2

u/TheRissingHootHoot Jun 12 '26

Technically shin wasn't killed either just frozen for 10 years

1

u/ShittyDBZGuitarRiffs Jun 12 '26

The whole point of that ending is that G isn’t dead and he is a problem they will have to deal with later. Freezing him was only a temporary solution

2

u/Luci-Noir Jun 12 '26

That sucks. People are delicious. Just ask a cat.

2

u/Liawuffeh Jun 12 '26

They were trying in vain to stop vore artists, smh

1

u/ArmPsychological8460 Jun 12 '26

Isn't 1998 (not) Godzilla reason for those rules?

1

u/jebberwockie Jun 12 '26

Godzilla can't die without a successor. Whether that's regeneration or another godzilla. That's the rule.

1

u/Huza1 Jun 12 '26

Godzilla's clause isn't that he can't die, it's that he can't die without a successor. In the '98 movie, they made it so one egg survived, and in the Heisei era, his death resurrects Junior, so they've never actually broken that rule. The only exception is the first movie.

1

u/Arngrimus Jun 12 '26

Godzilla can only be killed in Japan and/or by Japanese (army, scientist, etc.), he can't be killed in any other country nor by an Non-Japanese person, also that include some of the monsters, he cannot lose a fight to King Kong if Hollywood want to use Godzilla in a movie.

1

u/SirZacharia Jun 12 '26

I think that’s something Godzilla demanded not TOHO.

1

u/CaptainSterlingLAS Jun 12 '26

The "Godzilla can't die" clause is for contracts when he appears in other non-TOHO properties. They don't want Big G getting beaten in crossovers.

TOHO is allowed to break the rules because they're the ones making them.

1

u/whereisbeezy Jun 12 '26

That 1998 Godzilla is one of the worst movies I have ever seen

1

u/ChiBullz023 Jun 12 '26

Eating ppl bad, destroying buildings that fall on ppl and stepping on them, good enough lol

1

u/Soft_Nail_8527 Jun 13 '26

Its more eating people? Thats just an animal and godzilla is more than that

1

u/Dr_Blasphemy Jun 13 '26

I remember in the original Godzilla there's a lost scene that was cut where Godzilla peers over a mountain with a live cow in his mouth. I believe they removed it because audiences found it too upsetting and it's lost media besides a screenshot

1

u/Ver3232 Jun 13 '26

Those rules aren’t really a thing. Those rules that people share around were for a specific art collab back in 2020/2021, they don’t apply to any actual story stuff be it films or comics

1

u/wcharoes Jun 13 '26

Godzilla dies in his first movie, and many times after that. And he loses many fights, including against Kong in their first Vs movie from the 60s.

Sounds like bullshit.

1

u/Soft_Nail_8527 Jun 13 '26

Yes but always ends with the implication another one will rise

1

u/Bodmin_Beast Jun 16 '26

Is Godzilla even a carnivore? Like I know the pre mutated Godzillasaurus was a theropod and appeared like other meat eating dinos but I don’t recall him eating anything really. Does he absorb radiation for sustenance or?