SKULL ISLAND (2023) Netflix animated series!

[Benjamin Haines]

More than two years after it was announced, we've finally got the first teaser for Netflix and Legendary's Skull Island animated series!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJoT7Tm_byw

With this comes the announcement of the release date: June 22, just a month from now!

It's not clear how many episodes it will be but Deadline posted an article that describes the show's premise: https://deadline.com/2023/05/skull-island-netflix-series-voice-cast-premiere-date-teaser-trailer-1235377355/
"Skull Island takes viewers on a thrilling adventure as a group of kind-hearted explorers rescues Annie (Mae Whitman) from the ocean, unaware that their act of heroism will lead them to the treacherous Skull Island. This enigmatic place is home to bizarre creatures and terrifying monsters, including the mighty titan himself, Kong."

SciFi Japan also posted an image gallery: https://www.scifijapan.com/godzilla-toho/skull-island-image-gallery-for-new-monsterverse-kong-animated-series

This looks like it could be a lot of fun. I like how the visual style is so distinct from Gamera: Rebirth and both of the anime takes on Godzilla.

Fun fact: before Mae Whitman was ever on Arrested Development (her?), she had a voice role on Godzilla: The Series as the little girl who befriends Monique in the episode Shafted.

[lhb412]

Speaking of Godzilla: The Series; this looks almost like a successor to that series. It's giving late '90s/early '00s action cartoon vibes!

[Benjamin Haines]

^ Yes! This looks like a more worthy successor than the actual animated Kong series that aired on Fox Kids after Godzilla ended!

[Kailem]

The full trailer is out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzVEn9C0Ndw

Agreed with the comments about it looking kinda like a late 90's/early 2000's show. It looks like it has some cool monster in it, though the human characters could be annoying; though I guess that wouldn't be a first.

[Benjamin Haines]

I've watched all eight episodes of Skull Island on Netflix, and it's a blast!

In true '90s adventure cartoon style, a lot of the dialogue is corny but the talented voice cast never wavers in selling it. The characters are likeable and fun to watch.

Also much like the various late-'90s animated series adaptations of contemporary movies (Godzilla, Men In Black, Jumanji, etc.), Skull Island is all about presenting its own take on the premise rather than steeping itself in continuity with any of Legendary's films. There's just one fleeting reference in the second episode to the events of Kong: Skull Island, which a character describes as "twenty years ago," indicating that this series takes place around 1993.

Unlike the episodic adventure cartoons of yore, Skull Island's story is entirely serialized. These episodes were made to be watched in sequence, typical of shows in the streaming era. I certainly remember being a kid in the '90s and always wondering why TV shows didn't have stronger continuity from one episode to the next, so it's interesting how so many modern shows made by grown-up '90s kids tend to maintain tight continuity like this one.

The action sequences are intense, and as with most Kong movies, the death scenes are brutal and the violence is graphic. That's the one facet of this series that's not distinctly kid-friendly, as if this show was made specifically for adults who grew up with old-fashioned adventure cartoons. Still, I know I would have eaten this show up as a kid, graphic violence and all, and I would have made an effort to keep my parents from seeing how violent it is so they wouldn't have stopped me from watching it. I imagine that effort is a whole lot easier for kids today with unfettered access to smartphones or tablets.

Kong is great here, full of personality. He doesn't appear very much until the last two episodes but his role in the story is very satisfying. He looks like Legendary's version and he has the same roars from the movies.

This is a fun show. I hope it gets a second season.

[Benjamin Haines]

Well, nearly two years later, Variety reports that Legendary and Titan Comics are producing a comic book called Return to Skull Island as a follow-up to this animated series.

https://variety.com/2025/tv/global/monsterverse-expands-return-to-skull-island-comic-books-1236331041/

It was already looking like a second season would never happen but this seems to close the door on it, unfortunately. I like this show and I actually just rewatched it last month. The last episode ends on a cliffhanger for most of the characters and I'm interested to see what happens next, so I'll definitely get this comic but I wish the show could have had a second season.

It's a fun show but it's no surprise that its viewership wasn't big enough to continue. It's a 2-D animated spinoff of a live-action movie, it's rated TV-14 for "fear, gore, language, violence" which precludes a lot of potential kid viewers, the kaiju fan base is niche, and Netflix usually looks only at first-month viewership when deciding whether to renew a show.

Return to Skull Island is being written by Simon Furman and illustrated by Christopher Jones, so it looks like Skull Island showrunner/writer Brian Duffield isn't involved in this comic book continuation. Duffield said on social media last year that he had written all of the episode scripts for a second season.

[Kailem]

To be honest, I *really* disliked this show. The couple of more Kong-centric episodes towards the end were decent, but that was mostly because those were also the ones that had the least amount of screen time for what had to be some of the most annoying characters I've seen in a show or movie for a long time. I pretty much hated the kids, and the adults weren't a whole lot better.

That being said I still would have forced myself to watch a second season if it had gotten one purely because it's Monsterverse, much like I eventually managed to make my way through the Godzilla anime movie trilogy. But with this announcement obviously meaning it's been cancelled at least saves me from that possibility.