Legendary‘s Monsterverse, featuring various “titans,” was able to edge out some strong pandemic-era box office last year with “Godzilla vs. Kong.” And it looks like the studio is looking to the bigger-than-life monsters to dominate the small screen as well.
READ MORE: Adam Wingard Tapped To Make Another Monsterverse Movie For Legendary Pictures
According to The Hollywood Reporter, an original live-action series set within the Monsterverse is in the works at Legendary Television and will air on Apple TV+, a rather large IP acquisition for the streaming service. Chris Black (“Star Trek Enterprise“) and comic book writer Matt Fraction will co-create the new show with the former acting as the showrunner. Fraction’s work at Marvel Comics was directly used as the basis for the Disney+ series “Hawkeye.” Safehouse Pictures and Toho Co. Ltd will produce, the latter are the original rights holders to the “Godzilla” franchise.
The show will involve the secretive agency Monarch, which investigates titans around the globe. The series would be an excellent fit for television, seemingly taking place after the events of the original “Godzilla” film from 2014 that starred Bryan Cranston and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.
Here is the synopsis provided by Apple:
“Following the thunderous battle between Godzilla and the Titans that leveled San Francisco and the shocking new reality that monsters are real, the series explores one family’s journey to uncover its buried secrets and a legacy linking them to the secret organization known as Monarch.”
It’s unknown if Ken Watanabe or Sally Hawkins, who played Monarch characters in “Godzilla,” will reprise their roles for the show.
You might remember that the studio had once shopped “Godzilla vs. Kong” to Netflix during the pandemic’s impact on theater closures but was ultimately blocked by WarnerMedia and became part of their day-and-date release plans in 2021— theatrical projects dropping on HBO Max at the same time.
This new series isn’t the only big television project based on Legendary’s film properties in development. The company is also working with HBO Max to bring a “Dune” spinoff series to life with “Dune: The Sisterhood,” from showrunner Scott Z. Burns. Perhaps, we could see folks like Adam Wingard (“Godzilla vs. Kong”) or Jordan Vogt-Roberts (“Kong: Skull Island“) become involved with this new Monsterverse show in the future.
Wingard is attached to direct the next feature film for the studio, rumored to be a “Son of Kong” movie.
This boon for Apple TV+ is necessarily the best thing for fans of the Monsterverse being one streaming service. Legendary’s features films are on HBO Max, this new Monarch-focused series is on Apple TV+ and a related “Skull Island” Monsterverse animated series is set up over at Netflix, perhaps speaking to the fact that Legendary is ok with the brand being splintered if the companies paying for the rights are ponying up the right amount of dough.