Godzilla: King of the Monsters was released in 2019, and grossed a tepid $386.6 million at the worldwide box office. The reviews were also negative, and its performance both commercially and critically paled in comparison to both Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island.
Godzilla vs. Kong was already in development when King of the Monsters arrived in theaters, so did director Adam Wingard feel the need to make up for some of Michael Dougherty's mistakes?
"Well, I mean, one of the reasons why [Warner Bros.] brought me on for a follow up to King of Monsters is because I am so different than Michael Dougherty as a director," the filmmaker told Collider. "I mean he definitely leans more into the kind of horror realm, and his approach to Godzilla is really kind of scary in a lot of ways, and I think that they knew that the next film after that had to be different regardless of how it was going to be received, and I think I was kind of chosen ultimately because my take was always going to be [tonally very fun and] colorful and all those kinds of things, and so fortunately it didn't really affect us too much in a literal way."
Wingard added that he was aware of, "some of the stuff where, you know, people felt like [King of the Monsters] was like too dark in places, or there was too many particle effects and stuff. [But] ultimately that didn't totally factor in because my version was always kind of what you see right now."
It seems Godzilla vs. Kong was always going to be its own thing, and that's probably for the best.
Wingard is definitely an interesting choice to take the helm of a blockbuster like this, and if that first trailer is any indication, it's going to be a crazy ride.
The cast includes Alexander Skarsgard, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, and Brian Tyree Henry, and arrives on HBO Max (and in theaters) next month.