Varan

This film began as a direct-to-television co-production between AB-PT and Toho, and thus was shot in black and white in the Academy aspect ratio. AB-PT went bankrupt during production, but a two-part TV film was still completed. The two parts were then edited into a single, longer feature film to be shown in Japanese theaters, which involved extending and re-recording the musical score and shortening scenes and adding new ones. This theatrical feature was then cropped shot by shot and released in an ersatz anamorphic widescreen format adapted from SuperScope called TohoPanScope. Neither the TV version nor the theatrical version of this film exist in the Academy ratio, but the fully mixed audio track for the TV version still exists.

Some scenes of Varan's attack on Tokyo are stock footage from Godzilla (1954), including a shot of Godzilla's tail smashing into a building and a POV shot from inside a warehouse of Godzilla's foot caving the structure in. Also, Varan's roar is an amalgamation of various Toho giant monster roars, including Godzilla's.

The scene of Baran (aka Varan) flying is deleted from the American version of the film.