Five Things We Know About Godzilla vs. Kong, and One Thing We Don't

With the first round of casting announcements for Godzilla vs. Kong finally here, I figured it’s time to recap the morsels of information we’ve been provided so far and speculate on what they might mean. In listicle form!

1) Everyone Likes Kids in Kaiju Movies, Right?

Let’s get the new news out of the way first: The Hashtag Show reports that Julian Dennison has joined Godzilla vs. Kong. The fifteen-year-old New Zealander is best known for Hunt for the Wilderpeople, where he played an orphaned fugitive from justice, and Deadpool 2, where he, uh, also played an orphaned fugitive from justice. (With fire powers!) I’ve not seen the former, for some reason, but he was very good in Deadpool 2, both embracing and transcending the edgy teenager archetype.

Returning from Godzilla: King of the Monsters will be Millie Bobby Brown and Kyle Chandler, playing daughter and father. Chandler is a zoologist. Brown, as one of the most popular child actors on the planet, is certain to have more a substantial role than Carson Bolde in Godzilla – they’re paying her a million bucks to star in KOTM. Not to typecast, but I’m betting she’s a psychic. Otherwise it’s hard to center a child in an epic kaiju story without going full Noriaki Yuasa. Brown and Dennison are bound to interact in Godzilla vs. Kong; here’s hoping they spend at least half an hour debating who would win in a fight, complete with analytical gifs, strained analogies, and the phrase “galaxy level.”

Francis McDormand, who won the Best Actress Oscar last year for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, is also in talks to star. It may not always give out the meatiest roles, but it’s nice to see the MonsterVerse continuing to pursue Hollywood’s finest. Ziyi Zhang, the Chinese megastar who was cast in Godzilla: King of the Monsters in a “major franchise role,” should also appear.

2) Filming Might Start Before a KOTM Trailer Drops

With KOTM’s release date moved up to May 31, 2019, Godzilla vs. Kong will come out less than a year later (May 22). Right now, it’s set to start filming in October – in Atlanta, of course – under the pseudonym Apex. That kind of packed schedule is a given for cinematic universes, although it does often result in us learning ahead of time who makes it out alive, and potentially who doesn’t. Vera Farmiga, are you going to be the third dead MonsterVerse mother?

This seems like a good point to marvel at the fact that we’re facing down news on three upcoming Godzilla films, along with one that’s already out in Japan and awaiting Netflix. What an age!

3) Terry Rossio Got a Second Chance

Back in 1994, the dynamite screenwriting duo of Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio penned a Godzilla script for TriStar. While they received credit in the finished 1998 movie, Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich basically threw their version out the window and wrote their own. It’s one of the great “what could have been” stories in kaiju history, and Rossio was bitter enough about it to make an example out of it in one of his screenwriting columns, “The One Hundred Million Dollar Mistake.”

In that essay, he laid out a blueprint for a successful Godzilla movie that the 2014 version followed perfectly. “So you let Godzilla stomp into the film, all scary like, then bring on some other big monster for him to fight, so the audience gets to cheer, and then let Godzilla kick ass, swing that big J-Lo tail around... and if a few buildings get smashed in the brawl, hey, that's the price we pay for having the lovable lizard defending our earth.” Perhaps that played a role in Legendary’s decision to hire him for Godzilla vs. Kong.

Initially, he was leading a writer’s room consisting of Patrick McKay, J.D. Payne, Lindsey Beer, Cat Vasko, T.S. Nowlin, and J. Michael Straczynski. Director Adam Wingard posted a script cover on his Instagram that only credited Rossio, although that may change with time.

4) Multiple Monsters

Wingard has been tight-lipped about Godzilla vs. Kong’s plot, naturally, but he did let slip that there would be “lots of monsters going crazy on each other.” Of course, that could mean a lot of things. Part of the movie is set on Skull Island, so it’s a given that some of the other monstrous denizens there will show up. Mothra, Rodan, and/or Ghidorah could return from KOTM as well, though I assume Ghidorah is toast. And there’s always the possibility that roughly half the fandom seems to want: Godzilla and Kong going the DC route and ultimately teaming up against a greater foe. Hedorah? Destoroyah?

Alternatively, Wingard just meant that Godzilla and Kong would be fighting each other a lot. Who can know?

5) End of the Contract

As Shinji Higuchi revealed at G-Fest last year, Legendary’s contract with Toho to make films about Godzilla ends in 2020. They could draw up a new one, but Toho may ask too much or just not be interested, what with its own Godzilla cinematic universe in development. The box office, as usual, will likely be the deciding factor.

That leaves the possibility that Godzilla will either perish in Godzilla vs. Kong or be written out of the MonsterVerse some other way. (Godzilla being Godzilla, he could return either way upon a new contract.) If it sticks, I think the franchise could survive the second option but not the first. Wingard has promised a clear-cut victor in the big rematch, and some of us still aren’t over 1962.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about the biggest question hanging over Godzilla vs. Kong, the one that fans have dwelled on since it was announced, the reason (I assume) the main Toho Kingdom forum topic for it is 309 pages long…

1) When is Universal going to get its act together?

We all know Universal barely cares about King Kong vs. Godzilla, the second-best Showa Godzilla movie. They brought the American version to DVD when King Kong (2005) came out, with a fine transfer but nary a special feature in sight. Godzilla (2014) made them revamp that barebones disc in HD. It is now the only Godzilla movie unavailable in the U.S. in its original language, to say nothing of all the other differences between the two versions.

With a genuine remake on the way, it’s time to stop screwing around. If Universal doesn’t bring Toho’s new 4K transfer of King Kong vs. Godzilla to the States, we take to the streets.