Godzilla vs. Kong sparked quite a debate on social media when the two Titans were seen in the film’s first trailer destroying cities in an effort to destroy each other. It came as a surprise to some, seeing that the two monsters were quite evenly matched, especially after seeing them in movies before this one. Godzilla hasn’t changed much across Godzilla and Godzilla: King of the Monsters. King Kong, however, has seen quite a bit of growth since Kong: Skull Island‘s place in the timeline. In the 40 years between then and the story of Godzilla vs. Kong, King Kong has become a more formidable foe than he already was and the new film is ready to bring that into the action.
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In early 2019, ComicBook.com visited the Australian set of Godzilla vs. Kong, getting a look at the massive sets but also a war room with concept art plastered on all four walls. Among the impressive visuals was Kong going toe to toe with Godzilla, as seen in the film’s trailer, and appearing to be an evenly matched opponent, physically.
“Kong is bigger in this film, there’s a line in Skull Island that he’s still growing, so he’s an adolescent in that film,” Godzilla vs. Kong producer Alex Garcia explained. “Where we begin 40-something years later he is significantly larger, but he’s still the Kong. He has a few tricks up his sleeve, just by virtue of being around in a modern world and things that he can use and use tactically that Godzilla can’t. But he doesn’t breathe fire or do anything we haven’t seen him do before. And obviously Godzilla is as powerful as we’ve ever seen him, so he [Kong] has the odds stacked against him.”
How much bigger, though? Godzilla is estimated by the crew to be about 400 feet tall, with Kong coming in at about 350 feet. “We figured Kong could be 50, 60 feet taller,” production designer Owen Paterson explained. Kong is coming complete with new scars and skills resulting from his tribulations on Skull Island since we last saw him. “He’s gotten bigger,” Paterson promises. “Kong’s got really long arms and Godzilla’s got the short ones.”
Although Kong will have changed a bit, Wingard brought a heavy focus on keeping the character and mythology in line with the canon created by filmmakers who came earlier in this franchise while simultaneously leaving his own stamp. “The MonsterVerse version of Godzilla and Kong is just the fact that each one of these films by every director before me, Gareth Edwards, Mike Dougherty, Jordan Vogt-Roberts, each one, was able to kind of put their sort of stamp on these different films, and each movie feels like that directors film, and that was always the main attraction to do this series to me is that I wanted to be able to make, not just the Adam Wingard version of Godzilla and Kong,” Wingard explains. “I wanted this to feel like the Godzilla that we’ve been used to for the last few movies, and I wanted Kong to feel like the Kong that we had in Skull Island so that when they fought it really felt like this was really them going at each other.”
Want to talk more about Godzilla vs. Kong? Drop your thoughts in the comments or hit me up on Instagram. Godzilla vs. Kong hits theaters and HBO Max on March 31.
