After helming Godzilla vs. Kong and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, filmmaker Adam Wingard was expected to return to conclude his trilogy. Instead, he's handed the reins to Grant Sputore (I Am Mother), who is helming next spring's Godzilla x Kong: Supernova.
Wingard's new film, Onslaught, has received mixed reviews. The same could be said for his MonsterVerse movies, of course, but he has no regrets about moving on from telling stories about the sci-fi franchise's Titans.
However, he had intended to return, and even started laying the groundwork for what his third chapter would look like in The New Empire.
"We were talking about the follow-up, and I was even laying Easter eggs in the last movie. If you look at 'Godzilla x Kong,' a lot of like the titles of Bernie’s podcast, if you pause those, a lot of those were written by me because I was seeding sort of where I wanted to go with the sequel," Wingard revealed in an interview with The Wrap (via SFFGazette.com).
While Legendary was eager for Wingard to return, the studio wasn't willing to wait for him to shoot Onslaught. The filmmaker explained, "This is a franchise that’s on the rails and it ain’t coming off. They’re going to hit one of these every couple of years — as they should."
"I had a sort of 'Sophie’s Choice' moment where I needed to make a decision one way or another — either I spend the next couple of years doing a 'Godzilla' film, which I’d just done two, so I’ve been in that world for a while," Wingard recalled. "Or I could do the thing that I’ve been putting off for a decade, which is doing a smaller, more personal project. It was a difficult choice."
Despite letting the next Godzilla x Kong movie slip through his fingers, the director made it clear that he doesn't regret his decision to move on and tell an original story with his latest project, headlined by Adria Arjona and Dan Stevens.
"I don’t regret it at all. This was the best decision I’ve ever made because I needed to remind people who I am as a filmmaker," Wingard said. "Since 'The Guest,' I’ve been working under other people’s stylistic rules that they’ve set within these IP and franchises. I felt like not only were people losing the script of who I was stylistically, but maybe they never quite knew because I went off on all these different tangents."
He continued, "I wanted to do a film that really solidified what an Adam Wingard movie is. And that’s what this film is. This movie for me wasn’t about a No. 1 weekend. Hopefully the movie does well, but it was never about that. This was always about, 'We’re going to make a movie that’s going to rip, and it’s going to do all the things that I love with music and tonality and genre mash-ups, those things.'"
Based on other remarks in this interview, Wingard has moved on from Face/Off 2 and ThunderCats, as he looks to tell more stories like Onslaught instead of focusing on established franchises.
Godzilla x Kong: Supernova's cast includes Kaitlyn Dever, Jack O’Connell, Delroy Lindo, Matthew Modine, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Sam Neill, and Dan Stevens, who reprises his role as veterinarian Trapper Beasley from Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.
The movie arrives in theaters on March 26, 2027.