GODZILLA X KONG Director Leaves Franchise, But …
By Movieguide® Contributor
GODZILLA X KONG: NEW EMPIRE director Adam Wingard will not be returning to the franchise for a third installment.
“The parting of ways is described as amicable and stemming from timing issues,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. “The door remains open for a future return.”
It appears that Wingard’s split with the franchise is due to his upcoming involvement with ONSLAUGHT, an action-thriller that is set to start filming this fall.
In addition to directing and co-writing NEW EMPIRE, Wingard also directed GODZILLA VS. KONG. His involvement in the franchise has led to some major box office numbers for the movies.
GODZILLA VS. KONG made over $470 million at the global box office, while GODZILLA X KONG: NEW EMPIRE earned over $563 million globally, per Box Office Mojo.
Both movies also received favorable reviews. The Movieguide® review for GODZILLA X KONG: NEW EMPIRE reads:
GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE pits the two giant monsters against a new threat. A human scientist, Ilene Andrews, travels to Hollow Earth with two friends and her adopted deaf daughter, Jia, to investigate electrical disturbances. Jia has a telepathic connection to Kong and is having visions of Kong in trouble. Kong runs into a giant ape in Hollow Earth, who’s enslaved other giant apes and enslaved a large dinosaur who uses harmful, deadly energy beams of ice. The evil giant ape, Scar King, wants to lead his army to the surface to destroy human civilization and rule the Earth.
GODZILLA X KONG takes a while to expose the new villain and what’s really happening in Hollow Earth. However, there’s lots of exciting action before those revelations occur, and afterwards. GODZILLA X KONG has a strong moral worldview. The story’s goals are to protect human civilization and restore a fallen kingdom. GODZILLA X KONG also promotes the love between a mother and her adopted daughter. It’s marred, however, by lots of mostly light foul language and intense, scary violence featuring giant monsters.
The franchise is being left in good hands, though. In a separate report, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS screenwriter Dave Callaham has signed on to write the upcoming GODZILLA movie.
“The scribe wrote the early drafts and received story by credit for 2014’s GODZILLA, the movie that kicked off Legendary’s monster mania,” THR wrote.
A portion of the Movieguide® review for GODZILLA reads:
GODZILLA is extremely exciting and well directed, with stellar visual effects and terrifying sound design. The movie has a subtle environmentalist theme against nuclear power based on mythological pagan worldviews. However, it also has some strong moral, redemptive, patriotic elements. For example, it extols self-sacrifice and courage, and an American soldier says a Christian prayer at one point. Ultimately, though, GODZILLA has many gritty, intense moments, and the amount of destruction and foul language warrants strong, and possibly even extreme, caution.
