While Godzilla and King Kong are both giant, terrifying monsters, there is a stark difference in the way the two have been portrayed over the years. Kong is always shown in a sympathetic light, a gentle creature that only attacks others when it is disturbed. Godzilla, on the other hand, has been portrayed as everything from a hero, to an anti-hero to a straight-up villain. In a new interview, Godzilla Vs Kong director Adam Wingard confirmed the upcoming film will also feature Kong as the heroic protagonist.

"I see [Kong] as not just an animal. He's the gunfighter without the gunfight. He's this over-the-hill action hero who is not in a great place in his life. The way I always look at my version of Kong... in Kong: Skull Island, in the '70s, he's basically Clint Eastwood in The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. In my version, this is Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven. He's at the end of his rope. He's not having a great time. But when action calls, he's always still ready to step up and take it on!"

Through the trailers released for the movie so far, fans have gotten a sense of Kong's personal motivations in fighting Godzilla. The two superpredators share an ancient rivalry that gets freshly renewed when Godzilla appears to have gone rogue, attacking cities for no reason. This prompts the government organization Monarch to bring in Kong, complete with battle-ax, to take on the giant lizard.

So does that mean Godzilla will be the villain of the story? While the trailer certainly appears to suggest so, previous movies in the franchise established the giant lizard as a force for good, who took on the threat of the MUTOs and King Ghidorah to protect Earth. According to Wingard, both the legendary monsters will be given equal time to make their case and win the audience's sympathy.

"I like how Godzilla's a character who's a pendulum in terms of his personality. He swings back and forth between being a heel and the good guy. I was really excited that I got to do the first Legendary Godzilla where he's kind of seen as the heel of the movie. And so by proxy, Kong is going to feel a bit more like the hero. I think that fans of both of them will be able to cheer them on equally. Both are given equal weight in the film, in their own ways."

No matter how the big fight between the two titular characters go, we also know that Mechagodzilla is going to enter the fray at some point, forcing Kong and Godzilla to team up to take it down, but hopefully not before the debate over who would win a fight between King Kong and Godzilla finally gets settled.

Directed by Adam Wingard and written by Eric Pearson and Max Borenstein, Godzilla vs. Kong features a lead cast consisting of Alexander Skarsgard, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, and Brian Tyree Henry. This news originated at Games Radar.