Was voted the best Godzilla movie by fans in a 2014 Japanese fan poll. Ironically, its original release was not a success. The film had a reported $10.7 million budget making it not only the most expensive Godzilla film up until that point, but also one of the most expensive live-action Japanese films made at the time. Middling box offices results lead the studio to rethink their handling of the property and, in order to please fans, began re-incorporating classic (and therefore more marketable) monsters and stories into the following films instead of creating new ones. Toho would also begin to reduce the time and budget spent on subsequent Heisei films.
After filming was complete the Biollante suit was placed into storage, after which it became home to multiple stray cats found on the Toho lot.
This was the first Godzilla film to use computer generated imagery (CGI). Specifically for some computer generated schematics.
The scene with Dêmon Kogure (the KISS-like rock singer whose TV show has been interrupted by the media news of Godzilla's return) was one of the last scenes shot, and a last-minute addition to the film's story. Kogure (now Demon Kakka), a big Godzilla fan, is the frontman for the popular Japanese rock group, Sekima-II (formed in 1982). In 1984, around when Il ritorno di Godzilla (1984) was being released, he competed in the "Godzilla Scream Competition" (a contest held in conjunction with the release of that film), and won first prize. In 1989, upon hearing about "Godzilla Vs. Biollante" being produced, Kogure had kept exclaiming on his radio show, "Why don't they let me be in 'Godzilla Vs. Biollante'?" Whether his pleas were heard or not, he was invited to Stage #3 on the Toho lot, where his scene was filmed on October 28.
In Fall 1985, Toho held a contest to decide the plot for the next Godzilla movie, inviting writers and fans to submit story treatments for the project. Out of the 5,024 submissions, and with 10 finalists, the winner was Shinichiro Kobayashi, a dentist and part-time screenwriter. A big fan of Godzilla and Ultraman, Kobayashi had done the story treatment for Episode #34 ("The Forgiven Life") of Kaettekita Urutoraman (1971) (when he was just 16 years old), which inspired this film's story. This film was originally geared for a December 1986 release, but King Kong 2 (1986) was released in Japan and bombed at the box-office. Toho assumed that the movie failed because there was no interest in giant monster films, and "Godzilla Vs. Biollante" was scrapped. Finally, in 1989, the project was revived for Godzilla's 35th Anniversary. After the script was heavily altered, the movie was greenlit by Summer, filmed from early August to late November, and released to theaters on December 16th. However, the second place script ("Godzilla Vs. the Robot Army"/"Gojira tai Robotto Gundan," by James Bannon) would later become the other Toho science fiction film of 1989, Ganheddo (1989).