It's Official: Godzilla x Kong Follow-Up Is Go!

[lhb412]

Stevens is the human cast member I'd be most excited about returning, that's for sure. Though I was impressed by Hall's utter commitment to seriously deliver insane exposition.

[Benjamin Haines]

Deadline reports that Jack O'Connell (Back to Black, Ferrari) has joined the cast.

https://deadline.com/2025/02/godzilla-x-kong-sequel-adds-jack-oconnell-legendary-1236294068/

[Benjamin Haines]

Veteran actor Delroy Lindo has joined the cast! THR reports that Kaitlyn Dever's character works for Monarch, Lindo is playing her boss and Jack O'Connell is playing her brother. Dan Stevens as Trapper is still the only confirmed returning character so far.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/godzilla-x-kong-monsterverse-delroy-lindo-1236142668/

[lhb412]

Mostly new people with just a little connective tissue really sounds good to me. I think a refresh is exactly what's called for.

If we're full '60s-'70s Showa we should have self-contained films that experiment with different tones and genres.

[Kailem]

Yeah I'm ok with a new, or mostly new cast. Delroy Lindo is a great addition, he's always cool to see in anything he's in, so I take that as a big plus.

Filming is also apparently due to start in July according to recent reports, which would give them plenty of time to meet their 2027 release date if that's the case.

[Benjamin Haines]

THR and Deadline report that veteran actor Matthew Modine (Full Metal Jacket, Stranger Things) has joined the cast! THR also reports that he's playing a general and that filming is set to begin next month in Australia. That's an earlier start date than GxK, which began filming in July 2022 on its way to a March 2024 release. I guess they're trying to allocate even more time for post-production VFX work, which is good.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/new-godzilla-x-kong-movie-matthew-modine-1236155374/
https://deadline.com/2025/03/matthew-modine-monsterverse-1236311743/

I do hope that Kaylee Hottle returns as Jia again. Legendary's prior Kong movies and even the Skull Island animated series all give the impression that Kong has formed connections with so many individual humans over the years as a direct result of how lonely he's always been. Now that the last film ended with him leading a tribe of his own kind down in Hollow Earth, I'd like to see the next movie at least address how that affects his bond with Jia, even if she's not one of the main characters this time.

[Benjamin Haines]

Kaitlyn Dever said in an interview earlier this month that this movie is now filming in Queensland, Australia. Deadline also reports that Australian actress Alycia Debnam-Carey has joined the cast.

https://deadline.com/2025/04/godzilla-x-kong-sequel-alycia-debnam-carey-legendary-1236364353/

Debnam-Carey's most prominent acting roles to date have been on television shows including Fear the Walking Dead on AMC, The 100 on The CW, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart on Prime Video, and Apple Cider Vinegar on Netflix, with the latter also co-starring Dever.

[lhb412]

We should place bets as to which MonsterVerse movie they'll pull the trigger on putting "Destroy All Monsters" in the title.

[Benjamin Haines]

^ It's funny, one thing I've noticed throughout my life is that whenever nonfans hear the title Destroy All Monsters, they tend to ask me how many monsters get destroyed in that movie, and when I tell them it's just one, they think that's a misleading title.

Point being, if Legendary ever makes a movie called Godzilla/Kong: Destroy All Monsters, I think it will be a movie that follows through on that premise.

[Benjamin Haines]

Now we've got Sam Neill in the next Godzilla/Kong movie!

https://deadline.com/2025/04/godzilla-x-kong-sequel-adds-sam-neill-1236369130/

[lhb412]

WOOOOO! Hell yeah!

[Kailem]

This is turning out to be a pretty stacked cast! Definitely never saw this news coming, but Sam Neill in anything is always good; and when it's Godzilla, it's even better!

[Benjamin Haines]

We have confirmation of several key crew members, including several returning from prior from Monsterverse flicks.

https://if.com.au/screen-queensland-confirms-new-monsterverse-film-now-shooting-on-the-gold-coast/

Kong: Skull Island composer Henry Jackman is back. He's a prolific composer whose other scores include X-Men: First Class, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Kingsman: The Secret Service and Pokemon: Detective Pikachu, among many others.

Godzilla vs. Kong and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire editor Josh Schaeffer is back. He previously edited Pacific Rim: Uprising and 65.

Kong: Skull Island production designer Stefan Dechant is back. Since K:SI, he's been the production designer for Pacific Rim: Uprising and Rebel Moon.

Godzilla vs. Kong costume designer Ann Foley is back. Since GvsK, she's worked with star Kaitlyn Dever on The Last Of Us and she was also the costume designer for She-Hulk: Attorney At Law.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters hairstylist Jules Holdren is back. Since G:KotM, he's worked on Black Widow, Hawkeye, Top Gun: Maverick and Joker: Folie à Deux.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire makeup artist Sabrina Wilson is back too. She has an extensive list of credits including X-Men: Apocalypse, Fear the Walking Dead and all three Guardians of the Galaxy films.

Other confirmed crew for Legendary's new Godzilla/Kong movie are director of photography Dan Mindel (Pacific Rim: Uprising, Twisters) and VFX supervisor Kelly Port (Avengers: Infinity War, Spider-Man: No Way Home).

[Dai]

The music should be in good hands there. I'm just glad they've moved on from Tom Holkenborg. I've enjoyed some of his movie scores, but his Monsterverse ones felt bland and phoned in.

[lhb412]

^ Junkie XL has done some incredible scores, but his MonsterVerse ones are not among them! I read a while back about how some of these big composers have a heavy workload and have two tiers that they sort their work into; prestige projects they lavish their attention to, and the stuff they crank out quick and dirty with a lot of the actual work done by their staff. It'd make sense if that's the case here!

[Kailem]

We have a title!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ts7m0DeGnw

Cool that they did another title reveal vid with a teeny bit of footage like they did with The New Empire. And based on that title, I'd say it's pretty clear who the big returning foe is going to be....

EDIT: And after spending a bit of time typing the binary on the screen there into a couple of handy-dandy free online binary translators, the message you get is "Godzilla Kong. Watch this space".

[Benjamin Haines]

Man, based on the fan comments on that YouTube video and on Reddit, you'd think the title of this movie was "Godzilla x Kong: Spacegodzilla".

Godzilla and Kong clearly will be defending Earth against an extraterrestrial threat in this next flick and anything is possible but I have a hard time believing that Spacegodzilla of all monsters, from Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla of all movies, is going to be featured in this next Hollywood-produced Godzilla & Kong film. I think it's much more likely that we're looking at the first alien invaders of the Monsterverse. The invaders probably would utilize multiple space monsters or mechs as tools of conquest, and maybe they would create their own crystal-fused Spacegodzilla and Spacekong clones to take on Earth's champions, but I think that would just be a retread of how GxK presented Shimo and Skar King as Godzilla and Kong's respective foils.

Speaking of which, I'm surprised that this new movie's title contains the "x" again. After how the last movie's ads just said "Godzilla Kong" in the voiceover without saying the "x" or anything else between their names, I was expecting the next movie's title to just go with Godzilla/Kong. The abbreviation G/K would have been easily distinguishable from GxK and GvsK before it, but now we've got GxK: The New Empire and GxK: Supernova.

[lhb412]

Outrageous, over-the-top, I love it! Bring on those aliens. Let's have a proper invasion. I want to see Dan Stevens kick an alien in the head.

Also, having "Empire" in the title last time just screamed generic sequel subtitle. "Empire," "Rise," and "Dark" should be banned from sequel subtitles henceforth. "Supernova" is nothing if not distinctive.

... maybe the aliens are invading to escape a supernova? Like the black hole aliens.

[Benjamin Haines]

Supernova is a much better subtitle than The New Empire, that's for sure. I just wish they weren't reusing the "x" between Godzilla and Kong's names, because now the abbreviation GxK could refer to the 2024 film or the 2027 film, and now the distinguishing part of the 2024 film's title is The New Empire. I wish the 2027 film could have been called Godzilla/Kong: Supernova (G/K) or Godzilla & Kong: Supernova (G&K) instead.

I am really glad that Henry Jackman is back as the composer. His score for K:SI often cedes the spotlight to the many classic rock songs during the movie but it works really well in all of the scenes that it carries, and it has an intense jungle vibe that sounds unique on its own. The score and the classic rock songs complement each other and transition smoothly, which gives the film a very memorable soundscape.

I don't even think Tom Holkenborg's scores for GvsK and GxK are bad but they are the definition of nothing special. They fit the action fine in the movies themselves but there's nothing remarkable about them and they're by far the least interesting Monsterverse soundtracks to listen to on their own. Holkenborg over the past year has been open about embracing AI in music composition and it wouldn't surprise me if his Monsterverse scores were largely AI-generated.

The thing that really bothers me the most about the scores for GvsK and GxK is that they don't credit Akira Ifukube as the composer of Godzilla's theme, even though Holkenborg's Godzilla theme is clearly based on Ifukube's classic theme just as much as Bear McCreary's score for G:KotM is, and that score actually does credit Ifukube. McCreary adapted Ifukube's theme much more directly, whereas Holkenborg loosely adapted the structure of Ifukube's theme for just the main five-note motif of his own Godzilla theme but it's obvious how that simplified recycling is meant to evoke Ifukube's classic theme in the way it's utilized in the movies.

I hope that Jackman comes up with a memorable Godzilla theme of his own, and if he does decide to adapt Ifukube then I hope it's credited in the movie.