This movie features more Simpson voice actors than any other project besides The Simpsons (1989) itself: Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer and Nancy Cartwright. When the Simpsons later did a Godzilla parody called Homerzilla, they referenced that "Homerzilla" received a Hollywood remake that failed, a jab at this movie. The episode ends stating that Homerzilla will one day return just as soon as that "Zilla" film is forgotten.
Producer Dean Devlin claimed that, because TriStar was very secretive about the actual design of Godzilla, the studio created unique fake designs and sent them to different merchandise manufacturers, which was done to test whether the companies could be trusted or not. After Fruit of the Loom leaked images of Godzilla on the internet in November of 1997, they lost their license to sell any Godzilla-related apparel. Devlin also claimed that the mold maker who was hired accidentally based the Godzilla design on one of those fakes. When the mold maker found out about that, he destroyed the designs, but forgot to destroy the mold as well, which was then discovered and taken pictures from. However, when the official design was eventually revealed, it turned out to be essentially the same design as the alleged "fake leak".
Steven Spielberg tried to talk Emmerich out of making the film considering it a silly idea for Hollywood to try and remake Godzilla. Spielberg later told Entertainment Weekly that he didn't bother to see the film stating, "The only Godzilla I saw was the one with Raymond Burr. I purposely stayed away from seeing [TriStar's] Godzilla because I didn't want to get anything between me and my memory of my favorite Godzilla movie of all time."
In a television interview, Matthew Broderick said that the entire cast were given wet suits to wear underneath their costumes while filming in Hawaii. He was upset because his wet suit zipped up in the back, which made it difficult to put on every day. One day during a break in filming, he was talking with co-star Hank Azaria, who had his shirt off, revealing a wet suit that zipped up in front. Broderick remarked, "Oh, your wet suit zips up in front." Puzzled, Azaria replied, "They *all* zip up in front." Broderick had been putting his wet suit on backwards every day.
Despite the less-than-expected box office performance, this film still made more money worldwide than any other American movie based on a foreign film. It held this record until Godzilla (2014) claimed it 16 years later.