Apple announces the cast for its Godzilla show
The series will star Anna Sawai, Ren Watabe, Kiersey Clemons, Joe Tippett, and Elisa Lasowski
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Way at the beginning of this year, Apple TV+ announced that it was developing a TV series spin-off of Legendary’s MonsterVerse movies—i.e. the ones with Godzilla and/or King Kong that culminated with last year’s delightful Godzilla Vs. Kong. At the time, all we knew was that it would focus on “one family’s journey to uncover its buried secrets and a legacy linking them to the secret organization known as Monarch” and that it is co-created by Chris Black from Outcast and (somewhat weirdly) very good comic book writer Matt Fraction. Also, Matt Shakman of WandaVision fame is directing the first two episodes.
Now, thanks to Variety, we know some of the people who will be starring in the show and who they’ll be playing—though, after doing a quick CTRL+F search, it doesn’t look like any of them are playing Godzilla or Godzilla’s nephew Godzooky. Instead, we have Pachinko’s Anna Sawai playing Cate, a former teacher “and a G-Day survivor” (that seems to be the name for when Godzilla attacked San Francisco in whichever movie that was) who “uncovers a family secret” in Japan. Ren Watabe from 461 Days Of Bento will be Kentaro, “an intelligent, creative, and curious young man who has yet to find his own path.” Kiersey Clemons (from that Flash movie that’s definitely coming out) is May, “an American ex-pat with a roguish exterior that she she uses to protect herself as well as others.”
Joe Tippett from Mare Of Easttown is Tim, “an office drone who dreams of secret agent adventure,” and Elisa Lasowski from Versailles is playing Duvall, “an expert operative with unwavering confidence in herself and her skills.” Again: No Godzillas in there. Godzillas are expensive, we get it, but Apple has money and you don’t want to make a Godzilla show without any Godzillas.
23 Comments
Competition is heating up for the coveted role of Jet Jaguar.
A guy who wrote FF, Thor, and X-Men is involved in this? Yeah, that is weird.
quality Best Show on WFMU caller back in the day, whenever the day was
I remember picking up a collection of Godzilla comics back in the day and the main characters were an organisation called something like G-Force who were the most blatant Fantastic Four rip-offs you’ve ever seen. The leader was a genius scientist, the second in command was his wife, her younger brother was the wise-cracking youngster of the group and his frequent partner-in-crime was a big burly bloke who knew the leader from way back.It was good fun as I recall.
Wow, the list of “Shows no one has ever asked for” just got one entry longer. As has Apple+’s list of bad choices.
I dig the tagline.
Don’t forget the evil laugh.
I’ll wait a while and catch the heavily re-edited version starting a CG Raymond Burr. Love that guy.
They had me at Kiersey Clemons. OK, they actually had me at Godzilla, but then they had me again at Kiersey Clemons.
I’m…. skeptical. The weakest part of these recent Legendary Godzilla movies, IMHO, is the human characters. It feels like with Godzilla vs Kong they finally figured out that people don’t watch these movies because of the human characters — they watch these movies because they want to see giant CG monsters trying to kill each other for two hours. How they’re going to adapt that kind of production for TV, and not go broke, is beyond me.
Weird that W didn’t snag this for HBO Max, given Godzilla vs. Kong’s success over there.
No one cares about any of these people
What are the chances a guy named Ren Watabe would star in a TV spinoff of a film series that starred a guy named Ken Watanabe?
Maybe Apple is hoping people will think Ken is in the series if they’re not reading closely enough? Ren Watabe doesn’t even have a photo on IMDB.
You keep Godzooky’s name out of your mouth!
*slaps head* we’ve already had Batman shows without Batman, so why not other shows without the main attraction? I can’t believe I didn’t think of this already!
Hear me out: a Dracula miniseries all about who owned his castle before him.
So the realtor shows up to drop of his card at the end of season three?“If you ever consider selling…”
Ren WatabeAt first I was just hoping this was a misspelling.
No, he’s a legitimate actor, just like Ton Henks and Nian Nelson!
It’s such a given that Andy Serkis will play Godzilla that they just didn’t bother to mention it.
a former teacher “and a G-Day survivor” (that seems to be the name for when Godzilla attacked San Francisco in whichever movie that was)You know, they’ve only made three of these things. It’s not that hard to figure out.
A Godzilla series could do worse than adapting James Stokoe’s Godzilla: Half Century War. The story takes place over 50 years of one guy fighting Godzilla over and over, every time he reappears. They could do three seasons that span the whole story.