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The MonsterVerse is an American multimedia franchise and a shared cinematic universe which features Godzilla, King Kong, and other monster characters owned and created by Toho Co., Ltd. The franchise produced by Legendary Pictures and co-produced and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures that began in 2014.

The MonsterVerse takes place in an alternate Earth timeline inhabited by "Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms" (MUTOs), giant monsters of various shapes, sizes, and forms. Each of the films center around Monarch, a cryptozoological organization dedicated to studying the creatures, and their various encounters with the beasts. Many of the Kaiju present in the MonsterVerse are called Titans.

Timeline

Pre-20th century

TBA

20th century

Monarch was first founded in the late 1940s to investigate the appearance of MUTOs (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism). In 1954, Monarch operatives Lee Shaw, Keiko Miura and Bill Randa bring evidence of Godzilla's active existence to General Puckett of the U.S. military, leading to the latter using an atomic bomb to lure Godzilla to Bikini Atoll, where they attempt to kill them using the Castle Bravo atomic bomb. Godzilla is presumed by the military and Monarch to be killed in the blast, although in actuality, Godzilla survives the blast with no lasting damage done.

In 1973, just after the Vietnam War, Monarch heads an expedition to the mysterious Skull Island, an uncharted landmass inhabited by many large creatures that have drastically evolved outside of mankind's influence. Among the creatures living there is Kong, a large humanoid ape. Most of the Monarch team perish during the expedition, and the remaining survivors assist Kong in warding off several attacks by Skullcrawlers, a species of reptilian super-predators and Kong's primary adversaries in maintaining the island's natural order.

In 1995, Aaron Brooks, the son of two survivors of the Skull Island expedition, leads a team of five on a secret mission to the island to see whether or not Kong is still alive and keeping control over the creatures there. Once the team is stranded, they encounter new MUTOs including the Death Jackals, Sirenjaw, and Swamp Locust. Led by members of the native Iwi tribe, the team learns about Kong's origins and how he became the last of his kind. After a year, Aaron meets Kong and ends up being the mission's sole survivor. He sends his recordings about the mission out to sea in a Monarch kevlar bag.

21st century

Aaron's kevlar bag is found in 2012 and obtained by his father who learns of his son's fate.

Godzilla resurfaces in 2014 after Monarch unwittingly awakens a pair of parasitic, insectoid MUTOs. He pursues the creatures to San Francisco, where he slays them while military forces obliterate a nest where the MUTOs had been breeding. The incident exposes the existence of giant monsters to the world, and Godzilla returns to the ocean. A few months later, Godzilla returns and defeats MUTO Prime before heading back out to sea. For the next few years, Monarch begins making more proactive attempts to seek out other MUTOs to prevent another catastrophe like the one in San Francisco from happening again. In their efforts, the organization discovers the Titans, a pack of monsters comprising of Godzilla, Kong, Mothra, Rodan, Ghidorah, Behemoth, Methuselah, Mokele-Mbembe, Scylla, Abaddon, Bunyip, Baphomet, Leviathan, Na Kika, Tiamat, Sekhmet, Yamata No Orochi, Typhon, Quetzalcoatl, Amhuluk, and Camazotz.

Five years after the battle in San Francisco, a cadre of eco-terrorists led by the anarchist Alan Jonah unleashes Mothra, Ghidorah, and Rodan with the ORCA, the bioacoustics invention of Dr. Emma Russell to control them and create worldwide terror. Ghidorah, who is considered a rival Alpha to Godzilla due to his immense strength and power, triggers the awakening of the other Titans around the world, threatening unfathomable levels of destruction and the possible extinction of mankind. To stop this, Emma's daughter Madison uses the ORCA to lure Ghidorah into a fight with Godzilla in Boston. With help from Mothra and Monarch, Godzilla destroys Ghidorah and subsequently becomes the Alpha to the other Titans. Two years later, as the world recovers from the apocalyptic catastrophe, Monarch once again returned to Skull Island, were they got attacked by Spirit Tiger, Death Jackal and Mother Longlegs.

Along the way, Kong also roamed around Skull Island, and discovering cave paintings behind some trees. Suddenly, Camazotz and his minions attacks Kong and Monarch out of no where, that until Kong defeats Camazotz with one final blow, sending Giant Bat back to the Hollow Earth, leaving Ghidorah's storm takes over the Skull Island. Three years later, since Ghidorah's storm destroys Skull Island, Godzilla suddenly begins to act aggressively towards humans, seemingly without provocation, and attacks numerous facilities developed by Apex Cybernetics.

Agents from Apex hire a Monarch sect led by operatives Nathan Lind and Ilene Andrews to seek out a radiation-based energy source in the Hollow Earth, an ecosystem located beneath the Earth's surface and the alleged birthplace of the Titans. With help from Andrews' adopted daughter Jia, who can communicate with Kong via sign language, they extract Kong from Skull Island to have him lead them there. Once they arrive in the Hollow Earth, Apex reveals its intention to use the power source in conjunction with DNA from one of Ghidorah's skulls to power Mechagodzilla, a powerful automaton designed to exterminate the Titans and ensure human dominance and the cause of Godzilla's sudden hostility. Mechagodzilla becomes self-aware and hostile as a result of Ghidorah's implemented DNA, killing its creators and going on a rampage through Hong Kong. Godzilla and Kong, after concluding their own feud with each other, work together to defeat the robot. After that, Godzilla returns to the sea while Kong returns to the Hollow Earth to make it his new home.

Films

TV series

Printed media

Novelizations

Comics and graphic novels

Art books

Other media

Monsters introduced

Films

Godzilla

Kong: Skull Island

Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Godzilla vs. Kong

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

Hollow earth hyena
Hollow Earth canine
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Titanus Kong Tribe

TV series

Skull Island

Plant-shelled Turtle
Aloe Turtles

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters

Video games

Godzilla x Kong: Titan Chasers

Printed media

Kong: Skull Island - The Official Movie Novelization

Skull Island: The Birth of Kong

Godzilla: Aftershock

Godzilla: King of the Monsters - The Official Movie Novelization

Godzilla Dominion

Kingdom Kong

Kong and Me

Kong: Skull Island Cinematic Adventure


Godzilla x Kong: The Hunted

MonsterVerse Declassified

Scrapped and non-canon content

Godzilla

Godzilla: Awakening

Giant Anomalocarid in Godzilla Awakening
Giant Anomalocarids

Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong

Godzilla vs. Kong

Gallery

Trivia

General

  • The MonsterVerse is the first series of live-action Godzilla films since the Heisei era in which all of the films take place in a single related continuity.
    • It is also the third series to encompass a single continuity, when counting the TriStar series and its spin-offs.
  • All of the films in the MonsterVerse are set to be distributed by Warner Bros. (except in Japan), despite Legendary's current distribution partner being Universal Pictures. This is because Toho's deal with Legendary to grant them the Godzilla license was made exclusively with it and Warner Bros.
  • This is the first American-produced Godzilla continuity that features other trademarked Toho monsters other than Godzilla and King Kong themselves, with Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Rodan appearing in Godzilla: King of the Monsters. This is also the first time all four monsters have starred in a movie together since the Showa era film, Destroy All Monsters.
    • Mechagodzilla's existence was hinted at in the credits of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and it makes its debut in Godzilla vs. Kong; thereby, this completes Toho's "Big Five" roster for the MonsterVerse.
  • The "M"-shaped logo used for the MonsterVerse looks nearly identical to the Monarch logo.
  • The first two Godzilla films interestingly share the theme of Godzilla rising to face opposing Titans that threaten the planet and assert his dominance with a fractured family being caught in the middle of the chaos trying to survive and reunite.
  • This is the first in a long time that new monsters appeared on screen since the MUTO, the Skull Island flora/fauna, the Skullcrawlers, Behemoth, Scylla, Methuselah, and the Warbats.
  • Some of the cast (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Samuel L. Jackson, Brie Larson, John C. Reilly, Corey Hawkins, Tom Hiddleston, Vera Farmiga, Anthony Ramos, Rebecca Hall, and Brian Tyree Henry) in each film have also appeared in the "Marvel Cinematic Universe".

Godzilla

  • The MonsterVerse is the first series in which Godzilla does not deliberately destroy in the first film. While Godzilla was portrayed as a protagonist monster in the first film of the Millennium series, Godzilla 1500: Millennium, he was still depicted causing destruction and attacking humans, while the Godzilla in Legendary Pictures' Godzilla is never seen intentionally causing destruction or threatening human characters, though he does cause some destruction as a byproduct of his size and battles.

Kong: Skull Island

  • Kong: Skull Island is a first live action film where Kong is not killed in the climax at the film's end, and is the only live action King Kong who never leaves his island.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters

  • In the audio commentary for King of the Monsters, Michael Dougherty reveals that he and Godzilla director Gareth Edwards are both fans of the 1975 film Jaws, which is why Edwards gave the protagonist family the surname "Brody" after the Brody family, and Dougherty named his film's MacGuffin device after Quint's boat. Ironically, the original Godzilla served as inspiration for Steven Spielberg for Jaws.

Godzilla vs. Kong

  • The MonsterVerse is the first series to feature a battle between Godzilla and King Kong since the Showa era film, King Kong vs. Godzilla.
  • Godzilla vs. Kong marks the first film where King Kong faces off against a member of Godzilla's rogues' gallery, in this case Mechagodzilla.

References


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