Ready for a new monster-verse?

With a new production of Godzilla vs. Kong underway, two cinephiles share about their expectations from this popular franchise

Director Adam Wingard is reportedly working on the sequel to his 2021 hit, Godzilla vs Kong, in Australia’s Gold Coast. While the production house has not made an official announcement, the film is expected to mark the next installment in the production house’s Monster-verse franchise.

Godzilla was created by Tomoyuki Tanaka, Ishiro Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya for the film, Godzilla, King of Monsters back in 1956, while RKO Picture’s King Kong precedes it by another two decades. There have been multiple interpretations even before Wingard’s 2021 film reinvented their face-off. Fans of the genre reveal their expectations from the latest in the monster universe. 

Sticking to the basics

For Mayur Lookhar, every generation has adapted the monsters to their sensibilities. “The technology has come along in leaps and bounds. The stories though, were never the prime focus of the films,” the 41-year-old freelance writer emphasises. While he likes the spectacle, Lookhar believes the template is beginning to get repetitive. The global scale of the destruction can be entertaining, but it can get boring without a decent plot, he notes. Comparing it to the Jurassic Park sequels, he says, “I hope they do not return to the template of Godzilla vs King Kong as it can get predictable.” Despite the change in style, he admits that the previous film did a good job of adding novel elements into a universe of hidden monsters beneath the surface of the earth. “I like the idea of contemporising these legends for a new generation, but they should not be completely alienated from their original,” he says. All said and done, he prefers to keep the anti-hero soul of the monsters alive. “It made them appear human in a different way, and the film should keep that aspect intact,” Lookhar concludes.

The rise of new monster species

Akash Purswani clarifies that this version of King Kong and Godzilla belong to a different ‘monster-verse’. “They are versions of Universal’s Monster-verse, rather than a continuation of the King Kong from 2005,” the 31-year-old assistant professor shares. The draw of the films lies in the explosive destruction, says Purswani. While it is all about the spectacle, he reasons that the sequel cannot be about the clash. “I think it will be about a new variant. The previous film had a sub-plot on experimentation and a realm of monsters,” he points out. Of course he thinks that there will be an human antagonist leading the experimentation. “I hope they bring in a mecha-godzilla to up the ante,” Purswani says expectantly.

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