‘Godzilla x Kong’ Director Adam Wingard Takes Us Inside ‘The New Empire’

The New Empire is upon us! Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire! And to celebrate the release of the latest installment in Legendary’s MonsterVerse, Warner Bros. and Legendary invited us to a very special genre event, with director Adam Wingard!

Wingard brought us the roller coaster slugfest that was Godzilla vs Kong. And now for his next trick, he’s bringing the titan twosome back together again to battle an even bigger evil, and explore the depths of the Hollow Earth, along with the origins of Skull Island! We were incredibly lucky to attend a special genre event with the director, where he spoke about some of the cool new creatures that will be coming to the big screen in this new chapter.

Adorning the walls of the Godzilla x Kong war room in the IMAX HQ in Los Angeles, were pieces of gorgeous concept art showcasing the new fantastic locations across the Hollow Earth, the latest crazy titans we’ll be meeting in the new movie, and the impressive Monarch technology we’ll be seeing in the new film. In the center were tables of awesome props and statues straight from Monarch HQ, as well as models of temples resembling ones seen in Kong: Skull Island.

On why the room was assembled, Wingard had this to say:

“The idea was that we did this room with a lot of our concepts as a way to communicate my vision to the cast, crew, producers, and studio,” he began. “So that everybody understood what movie we were making. And that all started with a wall exactly like this that we had at the beginning of the walkthrough, and this was sort of like the vision board that I created. “

When discussing his inspiration behind the neon-lit sci-fi spectacle of the two MonsterVerse films he helmed, Wingard continued saying, “I’m obviously a child of the ’80s. So my influence as a filmmaker really was that experience of walking down the toy aisle as a kid and being bombarded with all these neon colors… it was like the golden age for toys in the ’80s with Thundercats, He-Man, Transformers, and G.I. Joe.” Which makes sense, given across the walls were images of Skeletor, and hovercrafts that really paid homage to old school G.I. Joe vehicles.

Naturally one can’t do a Godzilla movie without being inspired by the roots and original films of the character. And with Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, Wingard has obviously painstakingly paid homage to the movies he grew up with. He stated his affinity for “The Showa era films like Invasion of Astro Monster, Ghidorah, Destroy All Monsters,” he stated. “That kind of technicolor psychedelic vibe really interfaced nicely with my sort of experience of the ’80s, kind of neon colors. And so that’s the starting point for me with this movie.”

However one of the funniest visual inspirations behind the movie was from the most unlikely of sources: Wingard’s cat Mischief! When discussing one scene in particular, one in which Godzilla takes a giant cat-nap in the Roman Colosseum, Wingard said, “Mischief has been a big influence in terms of some of the ways I’ve developed mannerisms with Godzilla and in a literal way… She came through in this film, as you can see this shot of Godzilla in the Coliseum… it was inspired by my cat and her cat nest. With Godzilla, you know, you’re always trying to find ways to juxtapose him in familiar iconic locations. And in this film, we had a lot of fun taking him all over the world.”

The event also allowed the team to showcase some of the cool toys and costumes from the upcoming feature. You can take a look at our gallery of images from the event here: