After two massive opening weekends at the box office, Godzilla vs Kong has proven to be a powerhouse that not even the pandemic could put down. Director Adam Wingard has stated in an interview that the Monsterverse is at a crossroads at the moment and it is all up to the movie's success and audience expressing enough enthusiasm. The result could not have been any better as the movie is becoming both financially successful and gaining enough enthusiasm from fans to trend the "ContinuetheMonsterverse" hashtag. The big question that everyone has is where will the Monsterverse go from here?
Right now, the only thing planned for the Monsterverse is the Skull Island anime series for Netlflix, but no plans for movies have been announced as of yet. For all we know, Legendary could decide not to do any more films for the Monsterverse and just turn toward making a TV series.
They could even decide to continue the Monsterverse without Godzilla and stick with making Kong films. Or maybe they could decide to not do anything else overall.
Either way, I don't see the Monsterverse making crazy amounts of movies and spin-offs like Marvel. I can see them making one or two more movies before deciding to call it quits. There is only so much you can really do with monster movies before it gets stale. Especially after Godzilla vs Kong has just released, how can you top that with another three, four, or five movies down the line? There is an image that might give us a hint on what to expect, but take it with a grain of salt.
Around 2017, there was an image that popped up online that had a line-up of the Monsterverse that included all of the four movies that have currently been released and a fifth, unannounced movie titled Destroy All Monsters. Back then, this line-up image was thought to be fan made and was all wishful thinking. While it may still be a hoax, there is one image that stood out from the rest and it was the image for Godzilla: King of the Monsters. As it turns out, the image the person used for King of the Monsters is an actual piece of concept art that could be found in the art book for the movie. The art book for King of the Monsters didn't come out until 2019, two years after this image was made. This means that whoever made the image either had access or knew somebody that had access to the concept art. This tells me that this person might also have known of other developmental information that was shared to him. So I am partially seeing this image as legit, at the moment.
Again, this could still all be a hoax and Destroy All Monsters may not happen at all. If it is true, however, then we can confirm that this image of the Monsterverse movie line-up is truly legit if the artwork for Godzilla vs Kong can be found in the movie's art book, as well. If it can be found, then we might have to consider Destroy All Monsters to be unofficially confirmed unless Legendary says otherwise.
To all of those nay-sayers out there that believe the contract to use Godzilla is up because of Legendary's deal that was made with Toho Co., don't kid yourself. When it comes to money, Toho Co. will be more than willing to give Legendary an extension on the rights for Godzilla. Remember, part of Toho's plan is to work more closely with studios from Hollywood on projects like Godzilla movies. They're trying to expand to a more global market by using their intellectual properties (IP) such as Godzilla and Pokémon. So if they want to continue tapping into the global market then continuing the Monsterverse and allowing Legendary to continue using Godzilla is the way to go.
On the other hand, I am sure that Toho would like to go back to doing their own live action Godzilla movies and would like to get a head start on them. So maybe a new deal could say, "Legendary, you made these four great movies and we (Toho Co.) would love for you to continue using Godzilla, but we also have plans to do our own movies, as well. So how about we rotate on making Godzilla movies every 4 or 5 films." To be honest, that would not be a bad trade off because we would be getting Godzilla films from both Toho and Legendary. It would clear the air of any confusion that would make any of the movies released by either Legendary or Toho seem like they're competing against each when that is not the case. We won't have to have another Shin-Godzilla freak out incident.
As for confirmation of a continuation of the Monsterverse itself, we may not see this happen for a good, long while. While there is the Skull Island anime in the works, there is nothing else planned at the moment. There are some people saying we should expect confirmation at this year's Comic-Con, but we will see. Legendary is going to need a long discussion on what the Monsterverse's fate will be before they announce anything just yet. If we get more movies, then great. Let's go for it. I am all for more movies. But if not, then I would still be happy with the four movies we got and start getting excited for Toho's line up of movies.
I want to know what you think. Do you predict that there will be more movies for the Monsterverse or do you think Godzilla vs Kong will be the last movie? Leave your thoughts in the comments section of your thoughts on where the Monsterverse will trail next. Check out my store for merchandise and make sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Minds, MeWe, Gab, and Parler to stay up to date for more news, reviews, and discussions.