For fans of both giant monsters, it’s been Godzilla vs. King Kong for a lot longer than just the 2021 film. It’s a feud that’s been raging for decades, first made official with the 1962 film King Kong vs. Godzilla. For over half a century now, Japan’s atomic-age abomination Godzilla has been battling Hollywood’s tragic giant Kong. The same goes for the fanbases, who each have very different ideas about what makes a monster movie great. That’s why it’s so miraculous that the MonsterVerse has managed to bring them both together.
Across five films and another on the way, the franchise has accomplished something rarer than you might think. The folks at Legendary have actually built a shared cinematic universe where neither monster feels secondary, all while maintaining consistent levels of blockbuster glee that other, larger franchises have struggled to hold onto for so long. Not every entry is equally beloved, but all five deliver exactly what audiences show up to see: giant monsters doing giant things on the most giant scale imaginable.
The MonsterVerse Started as a Simple Godzilla Reboot
It’s easy to forget that the MonsterVerse wasn’t this sprawling crossover universe from the get-go. The entire project began with Gareth Edwards’ excellent film, 2014’s Godzilla. It’s a Jaws-like monster movie in the sense that it actually withholds its titular creature’s full reveal until it simply can’t hold him back any longer. It was a risk, but it was a risk that paid off: Godzilla had successfully been reintroduced to American audiences, and they immediately wanted more.
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Stop, Zilla time.
For its next move, Legendary acquired the complicated rights necessary to bring King Kong into the same universe. With this, a new long-term goal emerged: the studio had to bring cinema’s two most famous monsters together. But first, audiences had to be reintroduced to Kong, as well. Godzilla established the existence of Titans, but Kong: Skull Island expanded the mythology by introducing Monarch as the connective tissue between films. By the time Godzilla: King of the Monsters arrived, audiences were fully immersed in a world where giant creatures secretly shaped human history.
Every MonsterVerse Movie Embraces a Different Version of Giant-Monster Cinema
A huge part of the MonsterVerse’s continued success is its willingness to let each movie have its own personality. Godzilla plays like a disaster thriller, emphasizing scale and elements of suspense. Kong: Skull Island takes a completely different approach, feeling more like an old-school adventure movie than anything. And while Godzilla: King of the Monsters felt like something of a narrative misstep, it still served a greater purpose by introducing the existence of other iconic Toho creatures like Mothra, Rodan, and King Ghidorah into the MonsterVerse. Crossover films Godzilla vs. Kong and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire lean heavily into colorful science-fiction mythology and large-scale monster action critics and audiences missed in King of the Monsters.
All this tonal flexibility has nevertheless managed to keep the series fresh. Rather than repeating the same formula five times, the MonsterVerse continually (and successfully) reinvents itself without losing sight of its core appeal: clashing of the kaijus. The films always deliver those memorable monster moments we’re all there to see. Even viewers who disagree about which installment is best would generally agree that every movie contains at least a handful of sequences worth celebrating. That consistency is becoming increasingly rare among major blockbuster franchises. With more than $2.5 billion earned worldwide and additional films and television projects already in development, the MonsterVerse has definitely proven its staying power. No matter whose side you’re on, we’ll see you back here for the next chapter: 2027’s Godzilla x Kong: Supernova.
- Release Date
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March 29, 2024
- Runtime
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115 Minutes