GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE
THE TITANS UNITE IN HOT COLLAB GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE
FROM THE DADDY OF URBAN devastation to defender of Earth, Godzilla’s rep has seen some serious reappraisal of late. Now director Adam Wingard has another role for the unstoppable kaiju: saviour of cinema.
“One of the things I’ve often thought about is the way the last film played during the pandemic,” says the Biblically bearded helmer, whose Godzilla Vs Kong showcased an epic smackdown between the titans in 2021.
“At the time theatres were at their lowest point. Nobody was going to see films – not even Christopher Nolan movies! – and theatres felt like they were dying. Godzilla Vs Kong came out and that was the first film where people started showing up again to the cinema.
“It was an event movie – and I can say that because I don’t take credit for it myself. I’m a guest of the franchise, to a certain degree. The truth is that King Kong and Godzilla are the biggest icons in film history, and it took both of them together in one movie to save cinema and to get people going back to the theatres again.”
KING OF THE SWINGERS
If Godzilla Vs Kong was a grudge match that ended in an uneasy truce then Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire is the tag team encore. As the achingly trendy “x” in the title tells us, this fifth entry in the Legendary Pictures MonsterVerse is nothing less than a cross-brand collaboration – only with rather more tail-swipes and flying masonry than the likes of Puma x Rihanna might muster…
Make no mistake: for all their scales and fur and city-smashing tendencies these are two bona fide A-listers, bringing the kind of big-screen game that only comes with decades of cinematic history (Kong first roared in 1933, Godzilla in 1954).
“There’s just something about the iconography of Kong that really relates to people,” Wingard tells SFX of his alpha ape. “He’s sort of a representation of our baser instincts and vulnerabilities as human beings. Kong really is the last masculine hero in movies. They just don’t make them like that any more.
“A big influence on me from that perspective is one of my favourite films, Michael Mann’s Thief. James Caan’s performance is one of the best performances I’ve ever seen. It’s the most masculine performance, I feel, in film history. He’s got his hairy chest, his hairy arms and all that, and he’s just such a badass. He doesn’t take shit from anybody. He’s good at what he does but at the end of the day what really defines him, what makes him feel truly masculine, is the fact that he’s also in touch with the sensitive side to him. He wants to have a kid, and it’s his relationship with the woman that you
