thing that you hadn't seen before." Tatopoulos created four concept art pieces and a 2-foot tall maquette for a meeting with Toho. Tatopoulos and Emmerich attended the meeting to pitch their Godzilla to then Toho chairman Isao Matsuoka, Godzilla film producer Shogo Tomiyama, and Godzilla special effects director Koichi Kawakita. They unveiled Tatopoulos' artwork and maquette and the Toho trio remained silent for a few minutes, Emmerich recalled, "They were speechless, they stared at it, and there was silence for a couple minutes, and then they said, ‘Could you come back tomorrow?’ I thought for sure we didn't have the movie then." Tomiyama later recalled that "It was so different we realized we couldn't make small adjustments. That left the major question of whether to approve it or not." Even though Tomiyama was not allowed to remove the artwork and maquette from the studio premise, Tomiyama visited Godzilla producer and creator Tomoyuki Tanaka, whose failing health prevented him from attending the meeting, to explain Tatopoulos' design, stating, "I told him, ‘It's similar to Carl Lewis, with long legs, and it runs fast'." The following morning, Matsuoka approved the design, stating that Tatopoulos "kept the spirit of Godzilla." Writing Despite receiving approval from Toho, TriStar had yet to green-light the film. Emmerich and Devlin wrote the script on spec, with the condition that the screenplay would return to the filmmakers if the studio did not immediately approve it. Emmerich and Devlin wrote the first draft in five and a half weeks at Emmerich's vacation house in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Emmerich and Devlin decided to abandon the Atlantis origin established in Elliott and Rossio's script in favor of the radiation origin established in the Toho films, Devlin stated, "In some of the early drafts of the script by others, they had Godzilla being an alien planted here. What Japan had originally come up with regarding nuclear radiation – you can't abandon that. It's too important to what Godzilla is all about." Emmerich and Devlin also decided to treat their Godzilla more animal-like than monstrous, Tatopoulos stated, "We were creating an animal. We weren't creating a monster." Emmerich and Devlin also decided to give their Godzilla the ability to burrow underground, Devlin stated, "We discovered that certain kinds of lizards can burrow, so we decided to give him that capability." Chameleon-like skin change was also considered but abandoned later during production. Emmerich and