Godzilla vs. Kong Delayed to Summer 2021

Godzilla vs. Kong has moved away from the Thanksgiving holiday and will instead battle it out at the summer box office: Warner Bros. on Friday pushed the MonsterVerse sequel pitting Godzilla against King Kong from November 20 to May 21, 2021. Taking the date previously held by the Keanu Reeves-starring The Matrix 4 — now releasing nearly one year later in April 2022 — monster brawl Godzilla vs. Kong will open opposite Spiral, a new chapter in the Saw franchise starring Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson, both coming two weeks after Marvel Studios' Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

After shifting the Christopher Nolan-directed Tenet from July 17 to July 31, Warner Bros. pushed DC Comics tentpole Wonder Woman 1984 from August 14 to October 2. The live-action Tom and Jerry movie, once set for December 23, was pushed to March 5, 2021.

In May, the monster movie was suspected to move off its November 2020 date when a tie-in art book, timed to coincide with the film's release, was pushed from November to May 2021.

Godzilla vs. Kong now launches the studio's 2021 summer slate, which includes the Looney Tunes and LeBron James team-up Space Jam: A New Legacy on July 16, 2021, and James Gunn's The Suicide Squad on August 6, 2021. The Batman — once set to open June 25, 2021, before production was shut down due to coronavirus — was earlier delayed to October 1, 2021.

Director Adam Wingard previously described Godzilla vs. Kong — follow-up to Kong: Skull Island and Godzilla: King of the Monsters — as a "massive monster brawl movie."

"There's lots of monsters going crazy on each other, but at the end of the day I want there to be an emotional drive to it," Wingard said in a 2017 interview. "I want you to be emotionally invested in them. I think that's what's going to make it really cool."

In a time when monsters walk the Earth, humanity's fight for its future sets Godzilla and Kong on a collision course that will see the two most powerful forces of nature on the planet collide in a spectacular battle for the ages. As Monarch embarks on a perilous mission into uncharted terrain and unearths clues to the Titans' origins, a human conspiracy threatens to wipe the creatures, both good and bad, from the face of the earth forever.

Starring Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Kyle Chandler, Danai Guria, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Jessica Henwick, Shun Oguri, Julian Dennison, Demián Bichir, and Zhang Ziyi, Godzilla vs. Kong opens in theaters May 21, 2021.