This summer’s hit ‘Kong: Skull Island’, directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, was just the second installment in 20th Century Fox/Legendary’s Monster Universe (not to be confused with Universal’s Monster Universe, which opened with a whimper with ‘The Mummy’ not too long ago).  First came Gareth Edwards’ ‘Godzilla’ in 2014. Next will come ‘Godzilla: King of the Monsters’ directed by Michael Doughtery in 2019, but things really exploded the following summer with ‘Godzilla Vs. Kong’ to be helmed by Adam Wingard (‘Deathnote’, ‘Blair Witch’).  But while the film lives up to its title by throwing the biggest box office gorilla in history against the king of the kaiju, Wingard promises more than super-sized fisticuffs.  He wants to make you feel.

In preparation for this knockdown drag out, Wingard revisited a selection of movies starring these towering titans.  As anyone who grew up watching these types of films, especially the Japanese import films featuring Godzilla or any of his fellow kaiju, many of them are TERRIBLE.  Badly dubbed, cheaply produced throwaways starring men in rubber suits stomping all over cardboard buildings and toy tanks and jeeps.  But the original ‘King Kong’ and ‘Godzilla’ are actually still held in high regard for being groundbreaking for their time periods.  ‘King Kong’ remains a tearjerker updating of Beauty & the Beast, while ‘Godzilla’ was a reaction to the growing dangers of nuclear weaponry after Hiroshima was bombed, ending World War II.

Wingard discussed revisiting these films in preparation for ‘Godzilla Vs. Kong’:

Some of those Godzilla movies I haven’t seen since I was a kid so revisiting them was a lot of fun. To be able to almost go back in time and re-experience what that was like – I was able to directly empathize with that feeling when I really felt like, maybe Godzilla really is going to lose in this movie. That was really important because it helped me remember, going forward on [Godzilla vs. King Kong], the kind of feelings people are going to have when they watch it.

That’s what I want to do, I really want you to take those characters seriously. I want you to be emotionally invested, not just in the human characters, but actually in the monsters. If I had my way, I want people to really be teary-eyed at the end of the movie, and be that invested in to what’s going on.

But relax, there will still be fists a’flying:

It’s a massive monster brawl movie. There’s lots of monsters going crazy on each other, but at the end of the day I want there to be an emotional drive to it. I want you to be emotionally invested in them. I think that’s what’s going to make it really cool.

Wingard wouldn’t name these “lots of monsters” by name, but King Ghidorah, Mothra and Rodan are expected to appear in ‘King of the Monsters’, so those three are possibilities, especially if Legendary wants these characters to eventually headline their own movies.

Are you looking forward to this battle between giants?

Source: Screen Crush