Godzilla vs. Kong is set to be the culmination of Warner Brothers’ big screen MonsterVerse, building on the stories from Godzilla, Kong: Skull Island, and Godzilla: King of the Monsters. While there will be some changes made to the world and characters as a result of time passing, the previous films will very much inform what is going on in this franchise’s canon as the two Titans duke it out several times. While visiting the set of Godzilla vs. Kong in 2019, ComicBook.com learned when the showdown is taking place in the universes canon and there has been quite a time jump for both characters.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Godzilla vs. Kong is set about four years after the events of Godzilla: King of the Monsters and more than 40 years after the events of Kong: Skull Island (which explains how Kong got so much bigger).
“The movie opens on Skull Island, which has changed a lot in the 40-something years since we last saw it in Kong,” Godzilla vs. Kong producer Alex Garcia explains. “When the movie first opens, we are witnessing the beginning of a really massive event, a massive mission that is being undertaken to stem this global threat.”
In the time which has passed since King of the Monsters, Titans have been minding their own business and keeping quiet. Now, that is about to change quite drastically. “We see that there are many Titans in the world and Godzilla has been reinstated as the apex predator and he’s maintaining a balance,” in the wake of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Garcia explains. “But as we come into this movie Godzilla has been acting erratically for the last few months – no one knows why. He’s been attacking certain cities, facilities. Madison Russell – who is Millie Bobby Brown’s character – she is really the advocate for Godzilla in this film. She spends the film trying to vindicate Godzilla. She believes, with all her heart, that for a lot of personal and emotional reasons that there must be a reason Godzilla is doing what she’s doing. She believes that while he’s not benevolent to us, that what he wants is good for all mankind and that there must be some reason he’s doing this.”
The three prior films will play their respective roles in informing the events of Godzilla vs. Kong as director Adam Wingard aims to honor and incorporate the works of Mike Dougherty, Jodan Vogt-Roberts, and Gareth Edwards. “One of the most important things was, is that this feels like a legitimate sequel to those movies, that this feels like a legitimate match up between Godzilla vs Kong,” Wingard explains. “Even though Kong is a little bit different in this film, it’s only because he’s aged from the time of the last movie. So he’s a little more grizzled and all those kinds of things, but I guess what I’m trying to get at is that part of the problem with King Kong versus Godzilla, the original movie, is that we’d already established Godzilla, he looks basically like he did in the earlier films, but this was sort of a new King Kong.”
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.