Warner Bros. has successfully established a franchise around its “Monsterverse” brand, which has featured film series centered on both Godzilla and King Kong, culminating in the Godzilla vs. Kong crossover (2021). Since then, the brand has expanded outward into spinoffs, starting with the Apple TV+ series, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, in 2023. Now, reports are coming in that Legacy of Monsters is indeed getting its own spinoff series, which will serve as a prequel to the prequel story of Monarch’s founding.
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Apple TV has announced that the new series, yet untitled, will revolve around Legacy of Monsters star Wyatt Russell, who plays one of Monarch’s founders, Colonel Lee Shaw, in his younger years as he discovers the Titans and forms Monarch. However, Legacy of Monsters Season 1 begins in 1952 when Shaw is assigned as liaison to scientist Keiko Miura (Mari Yamamoto), and meets a young Bill Randa (Anders Holm) while researching Titan radiation; the season ends in 1982, when Shaw returns from a Hollow Earth expedition gone wrong to discover days in that realm equate to 20 years in the normal world.
The show then did the side-step reveal that Wyatt Russell’s Shaw became the older version of the character played by his dad, Kurt Russell, while sitting in a Moarch facility for thirty-two years. We hear anecdotally that he tries many escapes before being resigned to his fate; now, this new spinoff will tell one story of what Col. Shaw got up to during one of those earliest field trips.
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters‘ New Spinoff Brings Titans to the Cold War
According to Apple TV’s initial synopsis, “the spinoff series will follow the story of Colonel Lee Shaw (Russell), an American operative who, in 1984, went on a secret mission behind enemy lines in an attempt to stop the Soviets from unleashing a horrific new Titan big enough to destroy the U.S. and turn the tide of the Cold War.”
From that premise, it already sounds like there is going to be a certain amount of revision to the established lore that Shaw was simply dormant in a Monarch facility for three decades; instead, it seems that we’ll learn how Monarch and/or the US government used Shaw as a one-of-one operative to handle Titan-related incidents, such as the one described above. It’s also curious to see 1984 as the setting for a story about the Soviet Union messing around with Titans; the Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred in 1986, and is a prime historical event to recton into a seasonal story or feature film about how Titans were secretly at the heart of that incident. May that could be the setup for Season 2 of this Shaw spinoff…
Monsterverse Is Doing TV Spinoffs Right
Legacy of Monsters Season 1 was surprisingly pivotal and important to the larger Monsterverse story in some key ways. The time dilation effect during the initial expeditions into Hollow Earth was a big twist – as was realizing his connection to the other main characters in the show. Even though Shaw seemingly dies at the end of Season 1, it’s clear his story and influence on the franchise are far from over (as is the potential for his later return).
This new spinoff feels like another step in the right direction. The Godzilla film franchise, in particular, showcased how Monarch had a long history of battling against rogue governments, scientists, and paramilitary forces to safeguard Titans and their genetic material or keep them from being agitated into global threats. This new Shaw series could connect back to films like Godzilla: King of the Monsters by showing how the espionage world was shaken up by the Titans, leading to pivotal fractures and reformations. Characters like Charles Dance’s eco-terrorist (and former MI-6 agent) Alan Jonah are fair game to make cameos (recast with younger actors), as Shaw tries to move from America, through Europe, and into the Soviet Union. Hopefully, Kurt Russell will also appear to help bookend the series and give fans another great meta moment.
All in all, this feels like another correct step for the Monsterverse, despite being a “prequel of a prequel.” Then again, that same approach is how Star Wars got its prestige series Andor, so maybe this new Shaw series will be the one that similarly solidifies the Monsterverse brand as more than just “Godzilla vs. Kong” spectacle.
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters streams on Apple TV. Godzilla x Kong: Supernova will be the next film in the Monsterverse franchise.
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Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.
