The dead speak! The galaxy has heard a mysterious broadcast, a threat of MORE NEWSLETTERS in the sinister voice of the late NOSTALGIA DETECTIVE.
Somehow, the newsletter returned.
You may have questions. You might wonder “what about the concert movies idea?” or “what about the big deal you made about the end of the newsletter?” or “who are you?” or “what is this doing in my inbox?”. All valid. Not hugely answerable. I changed my mind, reader. I am allowed. I am akin to a bee, buzzing around the flowers, guided only by the scent of pollen on the wind. You wouldn’t ask a.bee why he’s doing stuff. Think about that before you start on me.
Anyway, hooray! We’re back! Really back, too. Original recipe, long-form nonsense about franchises. I’ll tell you the truth, reader. I fully forgot about so many film series when I was ready to wrap things up. There are actually quite a lot of them, and they’re often interesting.
Also, these are fun to do. I hope they’re fun to read.
Anyway, spiel over. What’s next?
is that… a vanbrace?
Apologies, reader. I’ve been deep in fantasy novels at the moment, so my armour knowledge is above-average at the moment. I have just Googled, and what Kong is wearing doesn’t envelop the full arm, meaning it is not a vanbrace.
Anyhow. Dealt with that.
I was at the cinema recently (fork found in kitchen) watching Godzilla Minus One. It’s really great, do check it out. In a fun - and I assume very rare - example of accidental franchise cross-promotion, a trailer for another, completely unconnected movie featuring Godzilla played before it. It’s Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, the upcoming snazzily titled fifth cinematic instalment in the “Monsterverse”, and it looks stupid (ambivalent).
Wait a minute. Monster… verse? A verse for monsters? Like the Dark Universe?
It looks like we need to back up a little bit.
Early in this newsletter, we came across the SSU, fka the SPUMC, Sony’s odd attempt to spin-off Spider-Man characters without Spider-Man. More recently, our Tom Cruise series skimmed through the short yet tragic tale of the Dark Universe, Universe’s infamous attempt to leverage their library of classic monsters into a connected franchise.
Both of these attempts were part of a larger 2010s media trend: the post-Avengers cinematic universe gold rush. King Arthur, Robin Hood movie featuring Merry Men team-ups - we’ve been there, we’ve snarked about that. Almost all of these cases flamed out, either before any production or after a first instalment. In the singular case of the SSU/SPUMC, the universe labours on somehow, coasting off fumes of Venom-related audience goodwill as they trudge towards adapting man’s most hated Spider-Man comics runs (heya, Madame Web).
It’s a good story, of the relentless capitalist drive to recreate lightning in a bottle leading to public humiliation. But it is incomplete. See, there’s another of these cinematic universes, launched around the very same time… that worked.
The MonsterVerse, as of this coming May, will have existed for ten years. True, it’s a slender thing, comprising only four movies so far with a fifth coming, but it is a true-blue cinematic universe. There’s a Netflix anime, and as of right now, a thoroughly mediocre Apple TV+ spin-off. Not only is it a successful long-running universe, but it did so by aping (ahem) the Avengers method: solo movies before full team-ups.
This isn’t supposed to work. Nobody makes this work. And yet, she (the MonsterVerse) persists.
Okay. I’m getting some questions. You, there, near the front. You’re pointing out that you forgot about the MonsterVerse because you haven’t liked any of the movies that much and nobody really talks about any of them. You…
Oh my. You’re going there? You’re saying it? Those words? That the MonsterVerse has no cultural impact? Gasp!
Did you know that the MonsterVerse’s four films have grossed almost $2 billion cumulatively? Did you, you little shit?
Did you know the actors who have worked in this franchise? I’ll list them off, only the big ones. Here we go. Release order.
Bryan Cranston, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Godzilla, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliette Binoche, MUTO, Ken Watanabe, Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, Brie Larson, John C. Reilly, Toby Kebbell, Corey Hawkins, Shea Whigham, Kong, Millie Bobby Brown, Vera Farmiga, Kyle Chandler, Bradley Whitford, Sally Hawkins, Charles Dance, David Strathairn, Mothra, King Ghidorah, Rodan, Mechagodzilla, Brian Tyree Henry, Rebecca Hall, Lance Reddick.
Look at that roster! I even left one out for dramatic effect, reader. Did you know that Alexander Skarsgard, acclaimed actor recently nominated for an Emmy for Succession, was the first-billed actor in Godzilla vs. Kong?
You didn’t? You’re challenging me to remember his character’s name without looking it up? Good one, buddy. Good one.
Fine, I don’t fucking know who he played.
“Dr. Nathan Lind”. Okay then.
I hope you are seeing the stupid point that I am making. These are huge, (generally) successful, star-packed blockbusters. They are still making them. And yet, it’s probably accurate to say that none of them have a lasting positive consensus in the culture, and that only one of them - the first - even really has a substantive fandom.
This isn’t a case of the Avatars, where a super-popular project is oriented away from the dominant obsessive-fan culture and towards regular Joes who don’t care if they can’t remember who Jake Sully is. Godzilla and Kong are popular little bastards. A subtitled Japanese Godzilla film is taking a run at $50 million in the US with almost no promotion.
I think this bears a second look.
So, reader, here’s the deal. Nostalgia Detective is getting wheeled out of the garage in 2024, and we’re starting the year with an easy, breezy four-film assignment: what the hell is the MonsterVerse, and why is it still around?
Hmm. No. That seems too manageable. Too cohesive. God forbid, the newsletters could end up being short.
Hey, at the risk of widening the lens a little too much - why did they build this franchise around these big CGI creatures, anyhow? Isn’t it a little of an odd fit?
See, in one hand, you have an icon of Japanese kaiju cinema, created as a potent metaphor in the shadow of the atrocities that ended the Second World War (and continued over dozens and dozens of increasingly wacky sequels and reboots), who had already been ported over to America in a legendary Roland Emmerich-directed flop. On the other, you have a big beast of Golden Age Hollywood best remembered for standing astride the Empire State Building swatting old-timey airplanes, who had also been revived for the turn of the 21st century as Peter Jackson’s follow-up to The Lord of the Rings.
None of this was a first at-bat, either: Toho, creators of the original Godzilla, had planted the flag with King Kong vs. Godzilla in 1962 (Kong won), a film that exists in two versions - much like the original Godzilla - consisting of the original Japanese and then a heavily Americanised redo adding American characters and spectacle to reframe the story.
Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. This all sounds really difficult to untangle. Perfect. It’s like we never left.
See you back here in a couple of weeks for Godzilla (2014). It’ll be simple, easy, and short. Promise. Just like I promised you there would be a part two of Jason Bourne.
Glad to see you're back, though I'm sad you don't like 'Monarch,' which I think thus far is the best written installment of the Monsterverse.
Also, I'd argue King of the Monsters has its fans, myself included. Imo, it is the best Monsterverse movie, though one that sadly never got the running time to do justice to its ambitious story.
In any case, looking forward to your takes on this franchise!