Apple just bought itself a Godzilla MonsterVerse TV show
A new show featuring Godzilla and his fellow "Titans," as seen in Godzilla Vs. Kong, has been ordered to series at Apple TV Plus
Aux News Godzilla
As far as international blockbuster franchises go, Legendary’s MonsterVerse has been decidedly slow to get itself off the ground. (Not Dark Universe-slow, mind you, but what is?) The franchise’s first installment, Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla reboot, lumbered into theaters all the way back in 2014; since then, there have only been three more movies in the whole endeavor, culminating in last year’s well-received but moderately pandemic-hobbled Godzilla Vs. Kong.
Which hasn’t stopped Apple from getting in on the city-smashing fun, apparently, with the company announcing today that AppleTV+ will be supplementing its current roster with a new show depicting Godzilla and “The Titans” (which is what Legendary would really like us all to call the various kaiju it’s building all these movies and shows around).
Now, you’re obviously wondering: “How can Legendary jam some boring family drama into this story about giant lizards punching each other?” Never fear: The untitled series will center itself on “one family’s journey to uncover its buried secrets and a legacy linking them to the secret organization known as Monarch.” (Monarch is S.H.I.E.L.D. if S.H.I.E.L.D. only did kaiju stuff; you might remember it from several of the least vital scenes of several of the MonsterVerse movies.)
The series is being developed by screenwriter Chris Black (Outcast) and veteran comics writer Matt Fraction, whose work on Hawkeye had a heavy influence on the recent Disney+ show.
All of which is kind of secondary to the real question, though, i.e.: Can this thing put a sufficient number of big monster fights up on the screen? We’ve proven, as a society, that we’ll put up with a pretty staggering amount of petty interpersonal drama from this film franchise—as long as we get to see a monkey punch a dinosaur. And, hey: Given how most of us ended up consuming Godzilla Vs. Kong from our couches last year, at least they have a test case for whether these big kinds of fights can work on the smaller screen, right?
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Monarch is S.H.I.E.L.D. if S.H.I.E.L.D. only did kaiju stuff; you might
remember it from several of the least vital scenes of several of the
MonsterVerse movies
What was the version of this organization from the Dark Universe? That one seemed pretty cool and a better thing to build a show around.
But human-scale kaiju stuff is going to have to work hard to beat Cloverfield or the 2010 Monsters film. Not sure what there is to say in this space that those two haven’t done already.
You’re thinking Prodigium. That was the organization from the Dark Universe. It was stupid in The Mummy, but the organization was pretty legit in The Mummy: Demastered.
DEFINITIVE LIST OF CINEMATIC UNIVERSE GIMMICK ORGANIZATIONS:
Dark Universe: PresidiumMonsterverse: MonarchMcDonald’s Expanded Universe: RAMBLE (Ronald’s Assembly of Marvelous Burger-Loving Experts)Willy Wonkaverse: The Dark Loompa Legion
Toy Story Universe: The Avengers but they’re action figures of the real Avengers.
Damn you AppleTVPlus, this is testing my need to consume the entire Legendary MonsterVerse media for OCD nerd compulsion.
Why’d it have to be AppleTV+? Can’t this have been on one of the seven other services I’m paying for already?
AppleTV+ isn’t great at sci-fi so you are fine.