Legendary Entertaiment loves monsters. They’ve made that pretty clear with Pacific Rim, Godzilla and the upcoming Kong: Skull Island. Now, head honcho Thomas Tull has made a move towards getting two of the headlining beasts into the same movie to fight each other.
Deadline reports that Kong: Skull Island is being moved from Universal to Warner Bros to facilitate a shared universe with Gojira, with discussions involving the King Of The Monsters’ home studio Toho.
The move is reportedly a fairly simple one, as Universal was just the distributor on Skull Island with no financial stake. This move allows for world-building and the inevitable confrontation between Kong and Gojira.
The question will be when this will happen. Godzilla 2 is currently earmarked for a 2018 release with original director Gareth Edwards to return once he’s done with his Star Wars: Rogue One duties. If the studios decide that they want their big monster face-off sooner rather than later, it will be interesting to see if affects the state of play for the Godzilla sequel, and if Edwards would still be involved.
Meanwhile, Kong: Skull Island is still casting, with Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson and Corey Hawkins confirmed, and Samuel L Jackson, John C Reilly and Tom Wilkinson circling. Jordan Vogt-Roberts will direct the film, which is slated for a 10 March 2017 release date.
How do you feel about the idea of a combined Kong/Godzilla universe? It’s not like it’s without precedent (it happened in 1962), and there’s always been an element of monster mash to these movies. If you didn’t think there was enough monster in Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla, this could be for you…No, where’s the word on Mothra?
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