The MonsterVerse is only three movies old, but the fourth could be pivotal when it comes to determining the long-term future of the franchise. Obviously, Godzilla vs. Kong arrives with the added burden of releasing into theaters when the industry is still on its knees, but a simultaneous HBO Max debut will give a good indication of the interest levels should subscriber numbers spike massively.
Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla and Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ Kong: Skull Island performed almost identically from a critical and commercial perspective, earning $529 million and $566 million respectively at the box office, while the consensus saw them end up with Rotten Tomatoes scores of 76% and 75%.
However, the wheels came off a little bit with Michael Dougherty’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters, which topped out with a global haul of $386 million and just 43% on Rotten Tomatoes, which was a major disappointment when the movie’s marketing campaign promised so much, with the trailers in particular a thing of beauty.
That only increased the pressure on Godzilla vs. Kong, but in a new interview, director Adam Wingard explained how the epic crossover event wasn’t affected in the slightest by the lukewarm reception that greeted the MonsterVerse’s previous installment.
“Well, I mean, one of the reasons why they brought me on is I think a follow up to King of the Monsters is because I am so different than Michael Dougherty as a director, 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 very 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.”
Of course, Wingard was also sent back to the drawing board after an early test screening saw the studio order extensive reshoots, but based on what we’ve seen so far, Godzilla vs. Kong looks like a great time either at the movies or in your living room, depending on how you decide to check it out when it arrives at the end of next month.