Production is now underway on the monster movie to end all monster movies: Godzilla vs. Kong. The film is a culmination of sorts for Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment’s Monsterverse, which began with Gareth Edwards’s 2014 film Godzilla, continued with Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ ambitious 2017 feature Kong: Skull Island, and will move forward again with next year’s sequel Godzilla: King of the Monsters, which hails from Trick R Treat director Michael Dougherty.

For Godzilla vs. Kong, Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment continued their trend of tapping talented genre filmmakers by enlisting You’re Next and Death Note director Adam Wingard to take the helm. He’s working from a screenplay by Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy writer Terry Rossio, and the star-studed ensemble includes Alexander Skarsgard, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Shun Oguri (Gintama), Eiza González (Baby Driver), Jessica Henwick (Iron Fist), Julian Dennison (Deadpool 2), and Demián Bichir. Curiously enough, the only returning cast members from previous Monsterverse films are Godzilla: King of the Monsters actors Millie Bobby Brown and Kyle Chandler, as Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins—who appear in King of the Monsters and were presumed to be the connective tissue between the movies—are not listed among the Godzilla vs. Kong cast.

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Image via Warner Bros.

The official Godzilla vs. Kong synopsis for the film is as follows:

In a time when monsters walk the Earth, humanity’s fight for its future sets Godzilla and Kong on a collision course that will see the two most powerful forces of nature on the planet collide in a spectacular battle for the ages. As Monarch embarks on a perilous mission into uncharted terrain and unearths clues to the Titans’ origins, a human conspiracy threatens to wipe the creatures, both good and bad, from the face of the earth forever.

Ominous! Behind the scenes, Wingard is working with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and The Mummy cinematographer Ben Seresin, production designers Owen Patterson (Captain America: Civil War) and Tom Hammock (The Guest), editor Josh Schaeffer (Kong: Skull Island), costume designer Ann Foley (Altered Carbon), and VFX supervisor John “DJ” DesJardin (Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice).

Production on the film is taking place in Hawaii and Australia, and it’ll be interesting to see Wingard working on such a massive canvas. He’s proven adept at navigating tension in small spaces with movies like You’re Next and The Guest, but Death Note also showed he can deftly handle bigger action sequences.

Look for more details to be unveiled as we get closer to Godzilla vs. Kong’s May 22, 2020 release date. But first, Godzilla: King of the Monsters arrives on May 31, 2019.

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Image via Warner Bros.
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Image via Warner Bros.
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Image via Warner Bros.