Godzilla vs. Kong trailer and poster–Fourth “MonsterVerse” movie merges the two MUTO franchises

Could an aircraft carrier support that kind of weight?

Warner Brothers released its new trailer (below) for the next Godzilla movie this weekend–Godzilla vs. Kong–the follow-up to the 2019 sequel Godzilla: King of the Monsters (reviewed here at borg). It’s one of the hundreds of movies delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, this one originally scheduled for a Thanksgiving week 2019 release. The next effort of U.S. studios to one-up the Japanese kaiju genre doesn’t try to hide what it is: what the director calls a “massive monster brawl,” a straightforward mash-up of MUTOs (massive unidentified terrestrial organisms). It merges the 2017 King Kong reboot Kong: Skull Island, and the Godzilla reboot story centered around the secret agency Monarch, which began with the 2014 Gareth Edwards-directed Godzilla. For this fourth film in Legendary Pictures “MonsterVerse,” young director Adam Wingard brings back Godzilla storyline characters played by Millie Bobby Brown and Kyle Chandler and adds familiar action stars new to the franchise Eiza González (Bloodshot) and Brian Tyree Henry (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse). It doesn’t look like any characters are being brought over from the Kong franchise.

The characters of course are based on Godzilla, created by Japan’s Toho Company in 1954 and King Kong, created much earlier by writer Edgar Wallace and filmmaker Merian C. Cooper in 1933. The filmmakers have said this 2021 film is not a remake of the first mash-up of Kong and Godzilla, 1962’s King Kong vs Godzilla.

Big-budget action movie composer Tom Holkenborg is back with the music, adding to his impressive list of action films, including Mad Max: Fury Road, Deadpool, The Dark Tower, Tomb Raider, Mortal Engines, Alita: Battle Angel, Terminator: Dark Fate, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Justice League.

Take a look at the trailer for Godzilla vs. Kong: