Michael Dougherty has directed and co-written the upcoming Godzilla: King of the Monsters, but he didn’t stop there. The filmmaker who brought us Trick ‘r Treat and Krampus also co-wrote the upcoming sequel Godzilla vs. Kong, so he knows exactly how – and why – that long-awaited, epic rematch is going to go down.
And he knows the match-up doesn’t quite seem fair. Godzilla has atomic super breath, while King Kong is just a giant ape. Bloody-Disgusting asked him how he planned to make King Kong a serious contender for the title of “King of the Monsters,” and he already knew the answer.
“I think part of the fun of watching that fight go down is we are witnessing a potential underdog battle,” Dougherty said.
“We’re looking at an almost David vs. Goliath situation. Because everyone, the moment you say Godzilla’s going to fight Kong, your first reaction is Kong doesn’t stand a chance. Godzilla’s got his radioactive breath, et cetera, et cetera.”
“But then if you really take the time to look at Kong as a character, it’s like, okay, in Skull Island he was an adolescent, so he was still growing. So who knows how big he is since the 1970s when they first met him?” Dougherty explained.
“Kong is extremely intelligent,” the director added. “As a primate, he’s a tool-user. So he’s got speed, he’s got agility, he might have some good size.”
“And I like a good underdog battle,” Dougherty teased, comparing this fight to another iconic heavyweight battle. “You know, it’s like watching Rocky go up against Ivan Drago. It seems like it’s unfair but clearly, this means the underdog might have a few surprises.”
Maybe Kong has a chance after all, but that still doesn’t explain why they’re fighting in the first place. If Godzilla is Earth’s protector, and Kong was the protagonist of his own film franchise, why are they fighting? Are these two titans only coming to blows because it’s cool?
“I think there’s something primal in human beings to want to see a fight like that,” Dougherty said. “I think it goes back to all of our myths and legends, ancient Greek myths about gods battling each other. It’s just part of who we are as a species. Half the reason I think people watch the Planet Earth nature specials is to watch animals going up against each other, to see crocodiles going up against water buffaloes.”
“So there’s that, but it just seems like it’s written in the stars for this to happen,” Dougherty continued. “It’s no accident that Kong was a direct inspiration for Godzilla, that the Japanese filmmakers watched King Kong and were hugely inspired by him and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and came up with Godzilla as an answer to that. So it just seems like it’s destiny.”
“And storywise,” Dougherty added, “the hope is that their motivations for fighting each other are sound, and not contrived. But when you have two extremely hyper-aggressive masculine territorial animals who both believe that they’re the rightful rulers of an entire species, chances are they’re going to do more than have afternoon tea.”
Godzilla: King of the Monsters chomps its way into theaters on May 31, 2019.
