Monster Zero

Additional rebuttal of the Cloverfield = Godzilla theory: while Sony did sign a three-picture Godzilla deal with Toho, the series had to continue within a five-year span. With the tanking of the 1998 Godzilla redesign, Sony decided to hold off, make some money off a Saturday morning cartoon series and hope the merchandising picked up on the more child-friendly side. The flick made about $140 million in the United States; budget was estimated around $130 mil, though most reports seem to put it around $200m due to an enormous marketing presence (remember the Taco Bell chihuahua/Godzilla team-up ads?). The official website (which now links to the next upcoming Godzilla video game) and trailers kicked off a full year before the release date. Merchandising had been a serious disappointment, which, in hindsight, may have been inevitable with Sony's insistence on keeping Godzilla's image secret (posters, billboards, print and TV ads featured a lot of foot, tail, and eye close-ups).

In any case, near-universal name recognition brought the totals to about $375 million worldwide, and sequel talk (active leading up to the film) slowly began again. It got through the treatment stage, but producers squabbled with Sony over budget, and the project died. With Godzilla released in May of 1998, the five-year window expired in May of 2003, and rights reverted to Toho. This doesn't preclude the license being reacquired, but it seems unlikely that it could have been done in secrecy.

Of course, this isn't to say that Cloverfield couldn't be the King Ghidorah movie...