'Godzilla: King of the Monsters' Star Explains Monarch's New 'G-Team'

Godzilla: King of the Monsters is the bridge film that will blow Warner Bros.' Monsterverse franchise wide open. The Godzilla (2014) sequel will take the isolated events of major Kaiju monster attacks seen in Kong: Skull Island and Godzilla, and open it up into an entire world of giant monster threats, as well as wider looks at the competing forces trying to either control, understand, or eliminate these "Titans."

To that end, Godzilla 2 will introduce us to a much different version of the Monarch organization than we've seen before. The group began as two "crackpot" theorists responsible for the Skull Island expedition in the 1970s, then crew into a clandestine branch of the government working on the Godzilla and MUTO phenomenons in the 2010s. By the time of King of the Monsters five years after the MUTO attack on the Pacific coastline, Monarch has seen such an influx of funding and resources that it is basically akin to Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D. organization when the film begins. The rub is that Monarch is a somewhat volatile mix of parts: a group of scientists who can't all agree on a course of action, and the elite soldiers stuck in the mess as the big brains try to decide what the mission is.

That latter group of soldiers will be known as "G-Team" in the film. When Comicbook.com had a chance to visit the set of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, we spoke with one of the films's biggest personalities, O'Shea Jackson Jr. (Straight Outta Compton, Den of Thieves), who broke down what G-Team is all about, and how his character, Barnes, approaches leading this one-of-kind unit of monster hunters:

"...there's certain divisions of military and then there's G-Force. There's G-Team. There's the cream of the crop, and there's the crazy cream of the crop that makes it to G-Team. You've got to get up on a different side of the bed to hunt monsters willingly. Yeah, if I haven't seen my family in years [in the film], I know the requirements to become G-Team. But to be a high ranking officer on G--Team, warrants a little crazy."

Indeed, one of the vague but intriguing ideas presented on set was that service in Monarch requires a next-level degree of secrecy. The idea was repeatedly floated that to be on G-Team, a soldier had to essentially drop his/her entire life and be a part of a mission that no one in the world can know about - because it's essentially a mission to keep the world from ending. Jackson made it clear that Barnes is ready for the fight to come against threats like Rodan and Ghidorah - but would O'Shea Jackson make the same choice, if he were ever called upon to join a real-life G-Team?

Said the actor: "As long as I can watch the Lakers, I'm good."

Godzilla: King of the Monsters opens in theaters on May 31st. You can read our full Set Visit Report HERE. Godzilla vs. Kong is scheduled to release one year later, on May 22, 2020.

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