This spot is a development of the popular “You’re Not You when You’re Hungry” Snickers campaign.

Godzilla is the coolest guy ever. He meets girls, plays ping-pong, rides ATVs and plays practical jokes. He high-fives bros and rocks out at dance parties.

Except when he’s hungry. Only then does he turn into a jerk, destroying cities and setting things on fire with his atomic breath.

Luckily, the guys toss him a Snickers, and Godzilla turns back into his old, fun-loving self.

The “Godzilla” commercial is an evolution of Snickers’ popular “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” campaign. The spot is all about how Godzilla is actually a fun, cool guy when he isn’t hungry.

To capture the charm and feeling of camaraderie with Godzilla and his friends, early on, we decided to eschew digital effects and shoot as much as we could without them. And to do that, we needed Godzilla on-set.

We built a suit that exactly matched the 1954 Godzilla. We consulted with the original Japanese studio Toho, to replicate their handiwork, from building the suit out of thin strips of shaved mattress foam to recreating the original rubber latex formula (including Kellogg’s Corn Flakes for texture) to matching the exact skin tone and facial expressions.

To do all of the stunts without CGI, we created a variety of suits for different scenes, including a lower torso for waterskiing, a charmingly lifelike animatronic head for close-ups and a suit that could safely and realistically ride an ATV.

For the destruction, we created a full block of devastation in downtown LA. We flipped a taxi, set fire to buses and cars, and brought in a bunch of terrified extras. We comped together ten live-action plates, plus smoke and light passes, digital destruction to the background, and, finally, Godzilla’s trademark fire breath.

Throughout, we removed Godzilla’s costume seams as well as piecing together plates of the upper-body live-action Godzilla with the lower-body waterskiing footage.