“Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” is roaring in movie theaters everywhere now.
The sequel to 2021′s “Godzilla vs. Kong” is directed by the Alabama-raised director Adam Wingard, who gave Hollywood a much-needed shot in the arm when the world’s movie theater future looked bleak. But honestly: When all else fails, let monsters fight each other.
The official synopsis: “This latest entry in the MonsterVerse franchise follows up the explosive showdown of Godzilla vs. Kong with an all-new cinematic adventure, pitting the almighty Kong and the fearsome Godzilla against a colossal undiscovered threat hidden within our world, challenging their very existence – and our own. The epic new film will delve further into the histories of these Titans, their origins, and the mysteries of Skull Island and beyond, while uncovering the mythic battle that helped forge these extraordinary beings and tied them to humankind forever.”
“Godzilla x Kong” brings back Rebecca Hall and Brian Tyree Henry while adding Dan Stevens to the ensemble. It also adds “The New Empire” as a subtitle, alluding to a return to Hollow Earth, where some of the action took place in the previous film. It also appears to tease a new villain sitting on a throne as the camera flies backwards to reveal the skulls of our heroes Godzilla and King Kong.
Born in Tennessee, the 41-year-old Wingard only lived in his home state for about a year before moving to Marion where he spent most of his life through high school before spending his 20s in Calera and Birmingham. The go-to horror director on projects like “Blair Witch” and “Death Note” would follow up on 2014′s “Godzilla,” 2017′s “Kong: Skull Island” and 2019′s “Godzilla: King of the Monsters,” finally marrying the MonsterVerse in the long-awaited bout between the iconic movie monsters. And despite never making a movie for more than $40 million at that point, Wingard felt ready for the challenge.
In spring 2021, “Godzilla vs. Kong” scored the best single-day gross of the COVID pandemic and had the best opening for a Hollywood film since the COVID-19 crisis began. It finished with nearly $470 million worldwide (and certified fresh), good enough for top 10 global box-office in 2021, opening the door for Marvel and James Bond to swoop back in as fans gained the courage to see movies the way we should: On enormous screens and with ear-splitting surround sound. You can stream it on HBO Max now.
Wingard held a hometown screening of “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” at the AmStar theater in Alabaster the week the film released in theaters everywhere, drawing a huge crowd of Alabama film fans eager to get back into theaters after the pandemic all but eliminated that experience. He did the same for friends and family at the AMC Patton Creek in Hoover last week, drawing a large crowd that made way for a particularly humorous fan encounter, which Wingard details below.
RELATED: Adam Wingard on movie monsters and his Alabama roots
He looks to up the ante even more by growing the MonsterVerse when, as he says, Godzilla is bigger than ever, especially on the heels of his 2021 film plus the word-of-mouth buzz on the Oscar-winning “Godzilla Minus One.”
Read our interview with Wingard below.
I listened to a Director’s Guild of America podcast about “Dune: Part Two” with Steven Spielberg moderating for Denis Villeneuve. And they made a point to emphatically thank people for seeing the movie in a movie theater. Your last film was such a boon for the box office and really the industry as a whole. How do you look back on that moment now that you’re a few years removed from it, just with the uncertainty you faced as people had no idea what the future held for theatrical viewing?
Adam Wingard: You know, I’m so fortunate to have been in the place I was with “Godzilla vs. Kong” at that time, but it didn’t feel like that, in that moment. It was such a harrowing experience putting that movie out because here I am as an up-and-coming filmmaker, and I’ve worked so hard over the years on all these lower-budget movies building up my library of filmmaking to try to get to the point of making a big tent-pole film. That’s always been my dream as a filmmaker. Those are the movies that inspire me. Steven Spielberg, his films, specifically “Indiana Jones,” “Jurassic Park” and all that, those are the films that made me want to make movies. Here I am in 2020 about to release my movie, and the pandemic hits. Suddenly, there’s talk of going day-and-date with the release, and we’re going to release on HBO Max the same day it’s going to be in theaters. Initially, I was devastated. It felt like, of all the times I have to put out a damn tentpole movie, it’s this year whenever theaters are closed for the first time ever. But it ended up being such a magical experience, one that I’ll never be able to relive, because everything kind of defied expectation.
So in a weird way, it felt more like an underdog story from my perspective, because here we are with this big monster movie, but nothing is doing well in theaters. So when it came out, it was just so exciting seeing people rallying behind a movie that felt like you have to see this in the theater. That whole experience of it unfolding, the movie playing well -- theaters were only opened at like 25-30 percent capacity when we opened, and we still performed really well. That was such a relief. It was a rollercoaster of emotions, but I’m so proud we were able to contribute to bringing theaters back. And I think in a lot of ways, that’s why there’s so much interest in this film, because I think it kind of redefined the MonsterVerse in a way because people almost have a nostalgia for it now because of that period. It’s like, “Oh that’s the movie that got me into the theater again.” So this is a series that’s been around long enough to have nostalgia, so it’s just exciting.
Your movie “Godzilla vs. Kong” really connected with audiences and critics, and then the recent success of “Godzilla Minus One” -- what is it about Godzilla that has kept him such a pop culture phenomenon, that now 70 years later, people still want to pay to see him in movie theaters?
The interesting thing about Godzilla and King Kong is I don’t remember a time where I was watching those movies for the first time. They always just have existed in my reality. Like you said, they’ve been around over 70 years in Kong’s case and 70 for Godzilla, so they’ve just kind of existed like clouds in the sky for me. They’re just characters that are there and always have been. And I think that’s probably a lot of people’s experience with these movies. They’re just kind of ingrained in our DNA at this point.
It’s interesting because we’re in a pop-culture moment with Godzilla that’s sort of unprecedented. He’s never been bigger in my lifetime. And that’s literally developed even as I’ve been in the MonsterVerse. There was always a feeling, strangely, of almost like being an underdog even though we’re making these big tentpole movies. There was something slightly niche about it, and I don’t know why that was. It felt like, oh this is a fanboy thing. People like Godzilla, it’s over here, and you’ve got your Marvel movies over here and that’s the big thing. It’s gaining this new momentum. There’s this big mainstream excitement for it. And I think the characters are so old, that mainstream excitement, there’s an element to it that’s ingrained in us. There’s a shorthand to why we’re excited about them.
Your movies have so many cool needle-drops, from Australian Crawl’s “Reckless” in “Death Note” to The Hollies’ “The Air That I Breathe” in “Godzilla vs. Kong.” I’m looking forward to more in the new movie, but what’s your all-time favorite movie needle drop?
Oh, man, that’s a f---ing good question. You mean just any movie ever? Man. The sad thing is after we get off this, I’m gonna be like, “Damn, I should have said this movie.” I’ll just start by saying that one of my top three inspirations as a filmmaker is Quentin Tarantino. And the reason for that is the way he uses music in his films. I’ll never forget the feeling of watching “Pulp Fiction,” where you’re just like every song is additive to this movie in a way that defines the film. I remember listening to that soundtrack all the time. But I can’t quite pinpoint it to one song. Ugh, I wish I had a good answer for you. There’s just so many. I’ll have to mull that over.
Adam, correct me if I’m wrong, but watching Godzilla and Kong in your hands feels like I’m watching the work of a wrestling fan. I felt like we even got a “hot tag” in the last movie. If so, who is your all-time favorite tag team, and which tag team do you think Godzilla and Kong most resemble?
[Laughs] I like that. In terms of tag teams, in terms of my favorite, who would be the ones? Gah-lee, you know, I really liked the Road Warriors. Growing up, I always thought those guys were so cool. They had the big spikes on their outfits and the really cool face paint. There’s a great episode of “Dark Side of the Ring” that Jason Eisener did of them I think from the first or second season. That was the one I remember that was my favorite.
I could tell you also, my favorite match that I’ve ever seen growing up wasn’t a tag team match -- it made such a big impression -- the Mankind vs. Undertaker match where he gets thrown through the top of the cage. I still get goosebumps when I think about how great that was. The excitement when that happened was just unbelievable. Mankind is one of my favorite wrestlers. His book is fantastic. I read that growing up in school.
It’s funny, the wrestling thing is coming back, too. That era of ‘90s wrestling...and I really love the aesthetic of the ‘80s wrestling as well. To me, the best version of wrestling is the ‘80s, the look of it. I loved how everybody was superheroes back then. The colors were kind of designed almost to be toys. Everybody popped in a way. They felt larger than life. But the ‘90s era, there was just something about the Attitude Era, with Stone Cold [Steve Austin] and stuff, that was the one I remember watching the most.
The last movie got so much love, and a rallying cry I would often hear was “Adam Wingard understands the assignment,” I guess meaning you knew how deliver on that title and really give fans their money’s worth with these iconic characters. Do you see it that way? It seems like people want to see Godzilla and Kong smash things and each other, but both characters have such heart and connect with people on a much deeper level than what they find with the action component. So what do you see as the assignment in handling these two that satisfies not just fans but also the lineage that got them this far?
I think the most important thing for me as a director is to be true to my influences in terms of the way Godzilla came into my life. I think the best thing you can do when making one of these films is share with people your experience of the Godzilla character, the Godzilla experience itself and the Kong experience. I grew up in the ‘80s, so the Showa-era films were the ones always playing on daytime television. So those were the first times I can remember watching Godzilla, it was always the Showa films on TV -- “Destroy All Monsters,” “Godzilla vs. Hedorah.” So that’s what I bring to this series. I’m trying to communicate to the audience what my experience of Godzilla was growing up. And specifically what I got from those Showa films was all the interpersonal dynamics between the monsters, the alliances. I just always loved the way Godzilla and Anguirus started out as villain and hero, and as those other films go on, Anguirus is his little buddy and there’s that alliance. And his alliance with Mothra was something that made a big impression on me.
So that’s what I try to bring to it. If I say what the assignment is, what it means to me at the end of the day, it’s bringing out the interpersonal relationships of the monsters as characters and trying to make the movie that I wanted to see when I was watching these films on daytime television. If I could have dreamed what I wished one of these movies was, it would be “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.” It would be a movie that really leans into that sense of fun and that strong POV of the monsters guiding the story with lots of visual, non-verbal sequences. When you’re a kid, you don’t need the people talking all the time. As a matter of fact, half of the talking goes over your head as a kid. When you’re making a film like this, you have to keep that in mind. You have to imagine what it would be like to be a kid watching this film. The thing that really communicates to you always are these monster sequences. You just understand what the monsters are going through as characters. Nobody needs to narrate that for you.
In 2021, there was a hometown screening for “Godzilla vs. Kong.” You came back to Alabama, had an amazing turnout where you got to interact with so many fans. What did that type of support mean to you, and how often do you hear from your people in Alabama while you’re so busy making movies?
Well, I’m out here in Alabama right now. I was on a red eye flight yesterday. I did a friends-and-family screening out here in Birmingham at the Patton Creek theater. It was so exciting. It was well over 100 friends and family. We packed out the house. Everybody had a great time. I had a really funny experience. I didn’t really have a guest list. I just told anybody that was coming, just bring all your friends, whoever you guys want. This is like a class reunion almost for me. I get to see all my old friends.
A funny thing happened, which was I’m standing at the door of the Patton Creek theater. I’m looking at people, some people I know and some I don’t. And this guy walks in, and he’s wearing a Godzilla T-shirt, and he’s got a Mothra hoodie on over that, right? I didn’t recognize him, but he kinda looked at me and was confused for a second, and he was like, “Are you Adam Wingard?” I was like, “Yeah,” and he was like, “What are you doing here?” I was like, “We’re about to do a friends-and-family screening of ‘Godzilla/Kong.’...Are you not here to see the movie? Are you just here watching a random film?” And he was like, “Yeah, I just came here to watch the new Winnie the Pooh horror movie.”
Somehow we got talking, and he showed me that he has an entire full upper arm sleeve tattoo of Godzilla and Mothra and all the different Kaiju. I was like, “Oh my God. Well, dude, we’re about to play Godzilla/Kong in the other room over here. Do you want to come in and watch it with us,” and he was like, “Really? Yeah!” So we got him in there, and it was fun. What are the chances? No one was at that theater that night, and this mega-Godzilla fan came in and recognized me. That guy has good timing. [Laughs]
“Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” is playing in theaters everywhere. Check Fandango or your local listings for showtimes.