Based on how many people watched the trailer, Adam Wingard’s Godzilla vs. Kong could conceivably have been just one two-hour fight scene between the title characters and audiences would be more than fully invested. Indeed, the super-sized smackdown was recently named as March’s most-anticipated movie across all platforms, which is no mean feat in the same month that Zack Snyder’s Justice League finally debuts.
Your mileage on Godzilla vs. Kong depends entirely on how you feel about the premise, and you can guarantee that there are already going to be more than a few snooty critics sharpening their knives in preparation for blasting the lack of an engaging narrative or any sort of substantial character development. While both are problems that the MonsterVerse has faced on a regular basis, fans are coming for the spectacle, and the spectacle only.
Wingard recently teased that Godzilla vs. Kong is going to end with a definitive winner, and in a new interview, the filmmaker hinted that he’s got plenty of kaiju-shaped surprises up his sleeve for when the movie arrives in theaters and on HBO Max at the end of the month, while also shilling the tie-in merchandise for good measure.
“We’ve got all kinds of really great monsters in this, some brand-new ones. There’s tonnes of surprises, and, you know, plenty of stuff for people to obsess over. And hopefully some really good toys will come out at the mall.”
Ironically, if you’ve been following the repeated leaks coming from the various toys, then you’ll be more than aware at this stage that several additional monsters are set to crash the party. The majority of the hype has fallen squarely on the central conflict, but Godzilla vs. Kong still takes place in a shared cinematic universe, so there’s also the required worldbuilding and expanding of the mythology to take care of, in among the citywide destruction and humans fleeing for their lives.