Shooting “Godzilla vs. Kong” as an Immersive 800 MPH Brawl | Source: Film School Rejects

Alongside the release of Godzilla vs. Kong in select theaters alongside a 31-day streaming window on HBO Max, Brad Gullickson, curator of the Film School Rejects “One Perfect Shot” column, had an opportunity discuss the film with director Adam Wingard.

From the beginning, Wingard wanted to avoid the sins of previous franchise entries, which included what Gullickson calls “ far too many sequences involving droning, dull humans.” Godzilla vs. Kong is “a breakneck contest of champions,” Gullickson writes.

“Coming in at one-hundred-and-thirteen minutes, the latest (and possibly last) MonsterVerse entry supplies only the bare minimum when it comes to people. No disrespect toward Millie Bobby Brown, Alexander Skarsgård, or Rebecca Hall, but Godzilla and Kong are the stars. No puny human can, or should, take their spotlight.”

Kong plays the underdog in the film, which means he dominates the screentime, says Wingard:

“[Kong’s] at a severe disadvantage in terms of this fight. Nobody wants to watch Rocky and have it be about Apollo Creed because he’s already ahead. What even is that movie? It’s just [Apollo] relaxing, having fun, being confident. Then he fights this guy at the end of the movie, and he’s kind of surprised that the guy’s pretty good? You want to follow the character that has the most to prove and has the most odds stacked against them.”

Godzilla vs. Kong is all about delivering the action, Wingard notes, including shifting points of view and shots moving at 800 miles-per-hour:

“I wanted to really get you right in there. I think this is the first film in these Godzilla movies where we have a lot of POVs from the monsters as well. Even though you’re trying to be dynamic as possible, you want to try to ground the camera work.

But we do some things that are just totally impossible for cameras to do. If you put a speedometer to it, the camera’s moving eight-hundred miles per hour for some of these shots. We tried to think, ‘If you were actually filming this, there would be a helicopter over there and we’d attach a camera to Godzilla’s fins.’”

From Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures, Godzilla vs. Kong will be released nationwide in 2D and 3D in select theaters and IMAX on March 31, 2021 and will be available in the US on HBO Max for 31 days from theatrical release.

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