'Godzilla vs. Kong' gets a March 26 HBO Max release
Godzilla vs. Kong, the latest offering from Legendary Entertainment's MonsterVerse, is coming to the screen sooner than expected. It will now stream on HBO Max on March 26. This venture was initially scheduled to release in November 2020, but was later delayed to May 2021. This advanced release might be something HBO Max subscribers will cheer about, but it follows a now-solved legal course.
Legendary authorities were mulling sending legal letters to Warner Bros. (distributor) to challenge the day-and-date release. Notably, WB didn't consult Legendary before sending its entire 2021 movie slate to day-and-date release strategy. That included Legendary's upcoming films namely, Dune and Godzilla vs. Kong. However, they reached an undisclosed agreement over the monster mash title, while talks over Dune's nature of release are still on.
Recently, Warner Bros. teased a new poster of the film, hyping viewers up with the announcement of its first trailer release. The trailer will be in three Indian languages namely Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu besides English on Sunday, January 24. The statement added that the clip will satisfy viewers who couldn't get enough of the HBO Max two-second sizzle reel previously released.
Expectations are soaring high from the film, which will bring King Kong and the sea titan toe-to-toe just like the 1962 movie King Kong vs. Godzilla did. However, Legendary has been introducing other titans of related or greater calibre than Godzilla itself in its movies starting with Godzilla in 2014. Kong: Skull Island in 2017 was Legendary's prequel treatment to the successful start.
Then came Godzilla: King of the Monsters in 2019, faring below expectations in the US with a domestic collection of $110.5 million. That film, however, expanded the scope of monsters in the franchise by introducing three Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms or MUTO, namely Behemoth, Methuselah, and Scylla. One such creature, Mokele-Mbembe, was teased in that film, which might appear prominently in this latest flick.
The 2019 film also made it clear that there are 11 more giants in the plotline. However, makers of the films had to create their titans anew, separately from the monsters coming under the intellectual property rights of Japanese film distribution company Toho. This is because Godzilla is a Toho property and borrowing each similar creature from them became extremely expensive.
