While everyone was going nuts over Ultron, Wonder Woman and Batman at Comic Con, I was reading up on what Legendary Pictures has planned for the future.
Legendary Pictures just ended a successful co-production deal with Warner Brothers that includes The Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception, 300, The Hangover Trilogy, Man of Steel, and Pacific Rim. Their agreement just expired, and Legendary now has a similar deal with Universal Studios.
At Comic Con, Legendary announced a November 2016 release for Skull Island, a film based on King Kong's place of origin. Kong will play a prominent role in the film, and Universal will co-produce the film.
The last time Kong appeared on the big screen was Peter Jackson's bloated, but respectable 2005 remake. This new film will have nothing to do with the 2005 version.
The other interesting piece of news from Legendary is the announcement of monsters to be featured in Godzilla 2. These monsters include Mothra, Rodan and King Ghidrah, three of Godzilla's most famous adversaries. The film will be co-produced by Warner Brothers, who co-produced Godzilla with Legendary and will be directed once again by Godzilla Gareth Edwards after he finishes work on his Star Wars spin-off.
I am excited at the prospect of a new incarnation of Kong for modern audiences, as the 1933 original is among my favorite movies of all-time. I have faith mainly because of how much I enjoyed Legendary's Pacific Rim and Godzilla. Both are giant monster movies with very different styles. Pacific Rim goes for a more action-packed anime feel, while Godzilla is a bit more restrained (arguably to its detriment, but not in this blogger's opinion) and comes off as an early Steven Spielberg film like Jaws or Close Encounters of the Third Kind. If they give Skull Island a unique style different from Pacific Rim or Godzilla, then it could end up being a really good movie.
But that's not even the most interesting part.
The most interesting aspect of this announcement is that Legendary is producing Godzilla films and a King Kong reboot. Granted, we don't know if the two monsters will clash on the big screen together like they did in Toho's King Kong Vs. Godzilla, but there is definitely a possibility that these two could cross paths.
The main reason why it may happen is that Kong's movie rights are with Universal, and Godzilla's are with Warner Brothers. Legendary is caught in the middle, co-producing monster movies with both studios.
If Universal and Warner Brothers were to team up with Legendary, this would be a movie of epic proportions.
Literally, Legendary is co-producing movies for the two greatest giant monsters of all-time. This is the equivalent of Warner Brothers acquiring the movie rights of Spider-Man, and throwing Batman and Superman in a potential movie.
Legendary is quickly becoming the studio to produce giant movie monsters. In addition to Godzilla 2 and Skull Island, they're co-producing Pacific Rim 2 with Universal in 2017. Legendary Pictures will be to giant monsters what Marvel Studios is to superhero movies.
Now we need to figure out how a 30 foot gorilla with no superpowers is going to take on a 350 foot lizard with atomic breath, but there's time for that later.
Right now, I'm just so happy to have giant movie monsters on the big screen from a studio that handles them well.
-Joey DeAngelis
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