
With Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024) nearing its theatrical run, Chris Mirjahangir sits down once more with director Adam Wingard to discuss the production process on this latest chapter in the MonsterVerse.
Interview conducted Friday March 15th, 2024. Edited for clarity and flow.
Chris:
When did writing on this film begin? How did it all come about? Like right after Godzilla vs. Kong? Preproduction? (On Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire)
Adam:
Well, you know, I had originally pitched some of the overall concept of this movie to Mary (Parent) and Alex (Garcia) at Legendary right in the final phases of post-production on Godzilla vs. Kong. And at the time Mary… you know like she was like the pandemic had just hit and it was kind of like a really unsteady time for films and Mary was like, “Listen, if this is a normal time I’d develop this with you right now, but we have to wait and see how Godzilla vs. Kong does.” And you know, sure enough, Godzilla vs. Kong does, you know, plays in the theater and by some miracle, does really well even during the pandemic. And, you know, like the week that it came out, I had a call with Legendary. And I was basically like, I pitched them you know, sort of like the more extended version of my idea. I basically had like five set pieces in the film. The general sort of structure, it’s basically the movie you’re seeing now. And you know, Mary Parent’s only thing was she was like, “Look, I can’t wait a year for you to do this movie. We got to go right now.” And I was like, “Listen, you know, I have all these projects that I’m working on but I’m willing to put everything on hold to do this, and this is my number one priority.”
And so, we just got started right away, and we got my friend Simon Barrett and Terry Rossio on and we got together and we started working.
Chris:
What was the writing process like?
Adam:
The writing process with Terry Rossio is really… a really fun one, you know? I mean, Terry goes back to like Aladdin and Pirates of the Caribbean. He’s like sort of like this, almost like professor, you know, like he has… It almost felt like Simon and I were going to school and we’d go over to Terry’s house because we would go over to his house in Beverly Hills, and he has this little bungalow behind his place that’s like an office. And Terry has this very methodical system of note carding, outlining a movie and it’s really fascinating because basically he takes a corkboard, it’s a very specific sized corkboard, I can’t remember what with the actual depth and dimensions are. Basically, the corkboard is a certain size, and he gets a certain size notecards, right? And he has this layout of you know the… what happened before the plot, during the plot, you know, the first, second, third act, and then on the right, he has things like, you know, like taglines, dot, dot, dot. Like he has this perfect structure where the amount of note cards that it takes to fill this corkboard is a movie, you know? So that if you know that you’ve filled up a certain amount of these rows, you’ve got a film. And so, his structure really helped us because we needed to be able to work fast and efficiently. And so that’s what we did. We sat in there, we just discussed the movie over the first, you know, like maybe… maybe about a month or two. We just talk through the entire movie, you know, notecarded it out, and then when we were ready, we pitched it to Legendary, they gave us a couple notes. We came back to them, “Here’s the final version.” And then it was off to the script and basically the three of us work together. And then Terry went off. He wrote the first draft, and then Simon and I took the subsequent drafts and we kind of went from there.
Chris:
So, you shot the film in IMAX, right? But kind of thinking ahead to the home release, is there going to be like an IMAX version, kind of like how Disney+ does their IMAX versions?
Adam:
You know, it would be cool if they did! I haven’t heard that they’re necessarily doing anything like that. I mean, obviously that version exists. So if they don’t do it now, then, you know, there’s obviously a place for it down the line because we have a good solid 49 minutes I think of IMAX footage. And I will say, I’ve experienced the movie in a gazillion different formats now. You know the Dolby vision, which is, you know, just the 2.3:9 is like, you know, that is so gorgeous looking. I mean like it’s so impressive, the colors and things. And in the 2.3:9 aspect ratio I mean, like the movie was always made with, we always like approved all of our VFX shots in 1.9:0, and when we watch them back, we always would watch them back in 1:9:0, but they were always framed so that the shots would both make sense in 2.3:9 and 1.9:0.and to a certain degree I don’t think that… I like I definitely prefer the IMAX experience. That’s like the number one way to see the movie and the IMAX 3D, which is also really super cool. And this is coming from someone who doesn’t really like 3D, but, but I love the IMAX 3D version of this movie, it’s fantastic. But with that said, I mean to a certain degree, like when it comes to watching it at home, I almost prefer the 2.3:9 version. It’s like if I’m going to watch the IMAX version, I’d rather see it on the big screen because that’s where it makes the biggest impact. But the 2.3:9 is kind of weirdly my preferred version, watching it at home, it just, something about it makes more sense.
Chris:
There is something with the home releases, I’m not sure if you have any say in this, but any home release for a MonsterVerse movie, it’s like… like really boring background, twelve blown out thumbnail chapter stops… Is there any way you have any input to kind of spice it up a little bit?
Adam:
You know, I’ll see what they’re doing, you know, because it’s funny because I, I tend to not even really get involved in any of my releases. I usually tend to just trust the distributor. But now that you’re saying that, I’ll see what their plan is and make sure that it looks cool.
Chris:
What was it like working with creature designer Jared Krichevsky?
Adam:
Well, he works at a company called Legacy Effects and we worked with Legacy on the last movie in terms of developing quite a few different things, but obviously his design for Mechagodzilla was the one that really stood out and that’s what we ended up going with, and I just had such a great experience with him on the last movie that when we started pre-production on this film, you know, when we went to Legacy I requested Jared, I was like “This is our guy.” Like, I want him to be the lead creature designer on this movie. And so there was no question about bringing Jared on. And he just nails it, man. And he like, he gets in there and he works quick and he is his art is fucking incredible. It’s very inspiring as a filmmaker, you know? When you get that new piece of Jared concept art, you just get excited! I mean, I think that’s one of my favorite phases of production on these films because it’s also something you don’t really get on, you know, a movie like “The Guest” or “You’re Next” or something. You know, you don’t get to develop all this really great art that inspires you. And yeah, so Jared is just I mean, he’s the best! I mean, he, because he, he not only did Shimo and Godzilla (Evolved), but he also did Suko, he did some of the side characters in the film. You know Jared’s really just such a talented guy and he’s so keyed in to what this world is and he’s like a true fan.
Chris:
What was the experience like on this film, you know making it as opposed to Godzilla vs. Kong and would you return for another one after this? Or do you need like a palate cleanser and go do ThunderCats or Face Off?
Adam:
Well, I think that what I really enjoyed about doing this movie was I… There was an aspect of coming on Godzilla vs. Kong where “Here I am, I’m this director making the fourth in a series and I’m following up all these really great movies,” but I couldn’t shake the feeling of feeling sort of like a guest to the franchise. And what was really exciting and freeing about this movie, was this being a continuation really, of Godzilla vs. Kong in a lot of ways. To a certain degree it feels like we’re kind of in the middle of almost like a trilogy, but like I felt more freedom to bring more of myself into the series this time around and that was really very exciting. And, not only from like a design and esthetic standpoint, but even from a story standpoint, like when I finished Godzilla vs. Kong, I had the confidence from my experience of working on that movie with the VFX and, and just the way everything unfolded to know that we could do a movie that could push into sort of a new territory with monsters that the monsters could almost tell their own story, and that’s what really excited me coming into this one was I wanted to do a film that really went from the monsters P.O.V. and was really driven by non-verbal kind of sequences. And to me, like part of the reason why that is, is when I think about, like, what inspired me to want to make Godzilla films in the first place and Kong movies is the experience of watching these movies when you’re a kid, it just really impresses on you. You’re just very excited about it. And the thing that when you’re a kid is what’s going on in the monsters, you know, like they have all these alliances and they communicate with each other in their own ways. And even the original films which are guys in suits and stuff, it’s, it’s like you, your imagination is still sort of interfacing with the movie as a kid and so it’s like that. That’s the experience I tried to want to kind of lean into, is that, people don’t need their hands held in terms of (the) monster may not talk, but you know what he’s feeling and thinking both Godzilla and Kong and they’re very different characters and they’re, your approach to them has to be different, but you know that’s what was the thing that I really wanted to get into the most, you know? In terms of what’s coming up next, we’ll see. I mean, it really just depends on how the movie does and, you know, and how I feel then, I mean, you know. Definitely would I like to make another one of these at some point? For sure, so we’ll see.
Chris:
Yeah. I mean, do you still feel kind of like, “I should probably get into Face Off” like it’s still kind of formulating in your head?
Adam:
Well, I mean, you know, Face Off still… you know, the script’s still in flux. You know, we’re still working on that. Same with ThunderCats. So, there’s all these things that I’ll just have to wait and see. I mean, like, honestly, when it comes to a movie’s release, especially one like this, where you’ve been working on it for a couple of years, the person you are two weeks before the film comes out is different than the person after the movie comes out.
Chris:
Yeah, after you get that month of sleep.
Adam:
Yeah exactly. Well, it just, your feeling about the whole project changes. There’s all this weight on your shoulders until the movie’s come out and everything and then, and it’s almost like you think clear and also like there’s just the question of the always with any movie you have to, you know, you have to go with, is the movie successful or is it not, you know? It seems like everything’s pointing towards the movie’s being successful, but I’m not going to get ahead of myself. *Laughs*
Chris:
Should you come back and do another one, for a main villain would it be an original creation like Skar King, or would you go with a Toho villain for like the Big Bad?
Adam:
Well, I probably shouldn’t say. I mean, the truth is though, and there’s so many Toho characters, you know that some of them are going to be coming out. You know, it’s not like… like everybody wants to see the Toho catalog realized with modern effects at some point so, right now there’s you know, there’s nothing in development per say, you know concretely. And so yeah, like which ones that would be, I don’t know yet. Actually, I do know. *Laughs* Or at least I know what I would go with.
Chris:
Yeah. I mean, it is a really interesting time to be a fan, you know, with the Oscar win for Minus One and then, you know, this movie coming out and then the Monarch series and everything. Does it feel like you never would have expected this like ten years ago, fifteen years ago as a fan?
Adam:
No, I mean, like that that that’s the thing is, even when I came in on Godzilla vs. Kong, you know, as far as like a big budget blockbuster tentpole film, it still felt somehow that the MonsterVerse was almost like a niche still, you know what I mean? It felt like even though these movies would make like half a billion dollars, this was also during the time when the true measure of success is, did you make two billion dollars, you know what I mean? And so these movies have always been very successful, but they always felt like kind of like, on the side of the culture a little bit, and so it’s been very interesting to see how in the seven years that I’ve been sort of working on these movies that that’s shifted because now these are, you know, have kind of become an important cultural like kind of thing. I mean, you know, like you said, I mean, you’ve got Minus One winning an Oscar, you’ve got a TV show now that’s very successful for Apple. You’ve got our series that continues to thrive. And I can just tell there’s just a different vibe online. I mean, like the excitement for this one, like, I can honestly say when Godzilla vs. Kong came out… It’s funny, because we felt like the underdog. You know, it felt like people were kind of just even surprised that it existed and that it looked kind of fun, and weirdly enough, there’s still that kind of underdog status to the series. I don’t know why, even though these are really big movies, but, um, but the fandom, you know, it’s, it’s becoming much more solidified. I mean like it’s there’s much more discussion about it across the board and I’m sure you see that because you’re right in the middle of it, you’ve been there the whole time and you’re probably just like, “Hey, welcome to the show.” *Laughs* But you know, as I’m sure for you too, it must be really exciting because you’ve kind of seen this thing kind of grow over the years.
Chris:
It is strange. It’s like the worst thing about Minus One‘s accolades was the narrative in the press that, “Oh, NOW it’s a cool time to watch a Godzilla movie!” I’m like, “No, it always was” (cool), you know?
Adam:
Right!