'Godzilla: King of the Monsters' Director Reveals His 'Godzilla vs. Kong' Involvement

Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a pivotal chapter of Warner Bros.' fledgling Monsterverse franchise - one that connects the loose connective threads of Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island into a full-fledged world of Kaiju monsters battling it out with each other while humanity scrambles through the crossfire. That world building is very necessary, as King of the Monsters is paving for the way for a full Godzilla vs. Kong crossover film in 2020.

Given Godzilla 2's obligation to set the stage for the main event of Godzilla vs. Kong, there has to be some kind of synergy between the various franchise directors. But just how much did King of the Monsters director Mike Dougherty collaborate with Godzilla vs. Kong director Adam Wingard? When Comicbook.com visited the Godzilla: King of the Monsters set, we had the chance to address that question with Dougherty, first-hand.

According to Dougherty, his involvement with Godzilla vs. Kong was minimal aside from, "sort of laying the groundwork for the organization and I hope sort of developing a visual Bible for what Monarch is, which we've still developed from Gareth [Edwards] film. And we've kept a lot of his work intact like the logo - again, that sort of realistic feel with the technology - we're keeping all that going, so I'm hoping it kind of gets tasked on into the next film. It's kind of like an exquisite corpse, you know, where the artwork gets passed from one artist to another, and ideally they're adding new and interesting layers to it. I'm not lording over it by any means."

Warner Bros. is definitely taking a Marvel-style approach to building out this rebooted Monsterverse into shared universe blockbuster hit. However, the Monsterverse is also much more linear in design than Marvel's Cinematic Universe, which makes the process of creative succession that Dougherty describes above seem like the logical way to approach things. The only franchise outlier is Kong: Skull Island, the second Monsterverse movie released, but the first event to occur, chronologically; it will be interesting to see how much (if any) of director Jordan Vogt-Roberts' Skull Island style and designs get brought back for Kong's big return in Godzilla vs. Kong.

Of course, there may be one big caveat with Dougherty's claim above: while he may not have much influence on Godzilla vs. Kong, it's long been rumored that characters from Skull Island may have found their way into secret cameos or references in King of the Monsters. That would be a little more directorial synergy than we heard of from Dougherty - and also a whole lot of fun for fans.

You can catch so much more of our Godzilla 2 s set visit info by visiting our official Godzilla: King of the Monsters page. The film hits theaters on May 31st.

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