Shinji Higuchi
The film was announced on October 2011, with a planned release date in 2013 and in December of the same year it was announced that it would be a live action film and that Tetsuya Nakashima would direct. On December 2012 it was announced that Nakashima had left as director because of creative differences. On December 2013, Shinji Higuchi was revealed as the new director and Yuusuke Watanabe as the screenwriter. Originally, the filmmakers wanted to make the film very faithful to the source material, but author Hajime Isayama suggested numerous changes (such as introducing new and different characters, and changing the setting to Japan) to make the films standalone, because "the story has already been told", while also introducing new elements that would later be used in the manga. Another thing to note is that the films may or may not be a sequel to the 1966 Toho film, "The War of the Gargantuas".