Godzilla vs Kong is the number one movie in the United States right now, and its global box office is giving hope to movie lovers amidst the pandemic. As you can imagine, director Adam Wingard is thrilled with the film’s success, but a few things did make him tense up ahead of its premiere. And now, the filmmaker is discussing why he chose to rip the band-aid off of his big Mechagodzilla secret.
The whole thing stems back to an Instagram post from last month. If you do not follow Wingard, the director took some fans by surprise with a selfie before Godzilla vs Kong went live. It was there Wingard snapped a picture of himself with a figure of Mechagodzilla despite the fact no trailers had shown the monster fully by then. As you can imagine, some netizens were angered by the spoiler, and Wingard says he posted the photo in an attempt to control the titan’s debut.
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“The whole spoiler process of a movie like this, at the end of the day, it either works or it doesn’t work whether you know that [Mechagodzilla’s] coming or not. Obviously, you want the purest experience possible,” Wingard shared with io9 recently.
“I know some people were mad at me online— probably rightfully so — because I posted a picture of me with a Mechagodzilla toy,” Wingard added. “But, the toy is in storage right now — you can buy it at Wal-Mart! The Funko version of him is out…this is not a secret. I’m very social media illiterate, so I probably should have put a spoiler page before it — that probably would have made people feel pretty good.”
“At the end of the day, I was asked specifically by Warner Bros. to post a picture of [the toy]. Well, you know, the thing’s already out there, so I did it, and then you kind of realize that may have upset some people. But you can’t please everybody.”
Clearly, Godzilla vs Kong couldn’t contain the online spoilers about Mechagodzilla, and the studio felt it was time to shift the narrative before the titan debuted. Still, the drama did not impact the movie’s performance that much as it is had the highest-opening of any domestic movie since the pandemic was announced last year. The movie’s distribution on HBO Max and in theaters has made Godzilla vs Kong accessible for millions, so it seems Mechagodzilla’s days in the shadows are over.
Did you put the pieces together about Mechagodzilla ahead of time? Or was the Godzilla vs Kong secret safe from you? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB.
