Godzilla and Kaiju Monster TV Series in the Works From Legendary, Apple

Borys Kit
·2 min read
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The big-screen world of Godzilla and Legendary’s Monsterverse is getting the small-screen treatment.

Apple TV+ has partnered with Legendary for a new original live-action show based on the creatures and the mysterious monster-tracking organization seen in the popular films.

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Hailing from Legendary Television, the show will be executive produced by Chris Black, the sci-fi veteran behind Star Trek Enterprise and Robert Kirkman series Outcast, and Matt Fraction, best known for his award-winning comic book work such as Marvel Comics’ Hawkeye. The two will act as the show’s co-creators, with Black as the showrunner.

Also executive producing are Safehouse Pictures’ Joby Harold and Tory Tunnell as well as Hiro Matsuoka and Takemasa Arita of Toho Co. Ltd. Toho is the owner of Godzilla and other ancillary characters.

Legendary has been unleashing Toho’s monsters since 2014’s Godzilla. After the first film, it began building a cinematic universe of monsters that included King Kong, not owned by Toho, as well as giant monster beings known collectively as Titans, kaiju that come from beneath the Earth’s crust to wreak havoc on human civilization. The cinematic universe included 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters and 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong. Collectively, the movies have stomped up close to $2 billion globally at the box office.

Per Apple, which made the announcement Thursday, the series is “following the thunderous battle between Godzilla and the Titans that leveled San Francisco and the shocking new reality that monsters are real,” and will explore “one family’s journey to uncover its buried secrets and a legacy linking them to the secret organization known as Monarch.”

The Monsterverse series is the latest entry in the sci-fi/fantasy series that streamers are developing in order to attract viewers who are hungry for geeky and spectacle-style product. The company already has Foundation, adapting the novel by Isaac Asimov, sci-fi drama Invasion, and the Jason Momoa post-apocalyptic thriller See.

Black worked on the cult 1990s series Sliders before working on Enterprise as well as Desperate Housewives in the early 2000s. He most recently acted as writer-exec producer on Outcast, ACM’s adaptation of the Kirkman comic.

Fraction wrote numerous comic book series for Marvel, including a defining run on Hawkeye. The recent hit Marvel Studios series seen on Disney+ leaned heavily on his work and he earned a consulting producer credit on the show. That was unusual as comics writers tend to receive a “thanks to” credit but in this case, his contribution was more impactful.

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