Legendary Pictures' MonsterVerse is officially set to make a comeback to the television screen at Apple TV+. The announcement recently came when Deadline reported a landmark deal that will bring Legendary's pre-existing franchise to Apple TV+. It has also been revealed that an untitled live-action television series taking place in the MonsterVerse is already in the works, and will feature Godzilla and several other titans. It's been nearly a year since we last saw the King of Monsters battle it out against the former ruler of Skull Island in the highly-anticipated film Godzilla vs. Kong. The latest MonsterVerse film proved to be a huge success, as it became one of the biggest blockbusters of 2021.
While most of the details pertaining to the upcoming Godzilla series are currently unknown, it has been confirmed that the series will explore a family's journey to uncover its buried secrets and a legacy linking them to the secret organization known as Monarch. The untitled series will be produced by Legendary Television and executive produced by co-creators Chris Black (who will also serve as showrunner) and Matt Fraction, alongside Safehouse Pictures’ Joby Harold and Tory Tunnell and Toho Co. Ltd. Hiro Matsuoka and Takemasa Arita will executive produce for Toho. It has been reported that Apple supposedly had "immediate interest" in Legendary's pitch as its streaming service wants more established IPs.
While MonsterVerse fans are truly excited about this recent announcement, some people have been wondering why the upcoming Godzilla series didn't stay with HBO Max. This easily makes sense since Warner Bros. Pictures and HBO Max all fall in with the same company, but of course, money had become the overall deciding factor. According to Justin Kroll from Deadline, he explains, "Legendary saw an opportunity to get best price by taking it to the market rather than go straight to HBO Max and from what I had heard Apple was the front-runner to land the series very early on in process." While HBO Max isn't involved in the all-new series, that doesn't mean the streaming service won't pursue another MonsterVerse project in the near future.
MonsterVerse's Skull Island Anime Series at Netflix
While the untitled Godzilla series is currently in the works, Apple TV+ isn't the only streaming service taking part in the MonsterVerse expansion. The franchise is also exploring the anime realm at Netflix. It has been revealed that Netflix is developing a new series titled Skull Island, which is an anime focused on King Kong during his time on the island. The upcoming animated series is co-produced by Legendary Television and Tractor Pants, with no release date revealed at this time. So far there have not been any announcements of a new film for Godzilla in Japan, but a mysterious countdown clock was recently posted on Toho Godzilla's official Twitter account teasing at a potential new project. Nothing else about the countdown still hasn't been revealed just yet, but fans can expect to hear something soon.
Legendary Pictures' MonsterVerse first began back in 2014 with the release of Godzilla, which then established the idea of Titans being so massive that they're effectively walking natural disasters. Godzilla was shown to be protecting humanity for the first time in the film by battling the more malevolent massive unidentified terrestrial organisms (MUTO) before retreating into the ocean for the next five years. In 2017, Warner Bros. released Kong: Skull Island, a movie which is set in 1973 that first introduced King Kong to the MonsterVerse, leading up to the battle with Godzilla in last year's Godzilla vs. Kong. In 2019, Godzilla returned for a sequel to battle the deadly Ghidorah and Rodan in Godzilla: King of the Monsters. As the MonsterVerse continues to expand, which project are you most excited for?